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William Roscoe

1 of 6 portraits of William Roscoe

William Roscoe, by John Williamson, circa 1784 -NPG 963 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Regency Portraits Catalogue

William Roscoe

attributed to John Williamson
circa 1784
30 in. x 24 1/2 in. (762 mm x 622 mm)
NPG 963

This portraitback to top

Roscoe was painted by Williamson, also a Liverpool man, on several occasions: (1) Joseph Mayer believed NPG 963, or its original, to be the first and probably that exhibited as above. A small oval version in Walker Art Gallery (6136) is sketchier and shows him reading a letter instead of the pamphlet; a watercolour drawing of the head in Liverpool City Library is inscribed in pencil: John Williamson/the first sketch Roscoe ever sat to (Mary Bennett, Merseyside Painters, People and Places, Walker Art Gallery Catalogue, 1978, p 225). (2) Oil in Walker Art Gallery (2547), half-length to left leaning on a marble folio, believed by his son to have been painted c.1791 and used as frontispiece to Henry Roscoe, Life of William Roscoe, 1833, II. Two variants are known in private collections. (3) Oil in Walker Art Gallery, head and shoulders to left slightly older, possibly mid-1790s. (4) Another variant attributed to Williamson is reproduced in A. M. Coats, Notes on some Portraits of British Botanists, 1965, p 206 and Liverpool Bulletin, V, 1955, fig.1. Williamson also painted portraits of Mrs Roscoe and their five sons (Walker Art Gallery 2589, 3167).

Physical descriptionback to top

Half-length to right reading a pamphlet, black coat, light blue waistcoat (or ribbon), white shirt-frill, reddish-brown hair, blue eyes, rosy complexion.

Provenanceback to top

Family possession and given by the sitter's grandson Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe MP in 1894.

Exhibitionsback to top

Possibly Society for Promoting Painting and Design in Liverpool 1784 (109) as 'Portrait of a Gentleman'; 'The Liverpool Academy', Walker Art Gallery, 1960 (2).


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: Richard Walker, Regency Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, 1985, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.

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