Oil painting, A boy in a red coat, attributed to John Russell, British School, late 18th century

Portrait, head-and-shoulders, left profile, of a young boy wearing a red coat and white cravat.

Bequeathed by Claude D. Rotch

Bequeathed by Claude Dickason Rotch [C. D. Rotch] (1878-1961):

From: Neil Jeffares, ‘Biographical Index of Collectors’ in Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800, (see references).

Claude Dickason Rotch [C. D. Rotch] (1878-1961) of Albany and The Elms, Park Road, Teddington, Middlesex, inventor, scholar, dog breeder and art collector, born in Waterloo, Lancashire, the son of a barrister of Scottish and American origin; his great uncle was Benjamin Rotch, MP. He commenced his career as a rubber grower in Ceylon; on his return to England he served as a director of the London Asiatic and other rubber companies (in 1927 he made a patent application for a type of rubber paving block). He was also a freemason and author of studies on the history of masonry. As an art collector, his interests ranged from furniture and silver to old master paintings. He made major donations to the Fitzwilliam Museum (1942), to Trinity Hall, Cambridge (where he matriculated in 1898), the National Gallery (1962) and to the V&A (1957-63).His bequest to the V&A included just over twenty 17th, 18th and early 19th century portraits and figure studies, in pastel and in oil, as well as a selection of still lives and animal pictures.

A boy in a red coat was bequeathed to the Museum in 1962 by Claude Rotch, who had a particular taste for late-18th century painting. At the time, the painting was attributed to John Russell with a date of c.1783. The painting’s attribution to Russell seems plausible, in spite of an earlier attribution to Nathaniel Hone when it was exhibited in the Masterpieces of British Art and Craftsmanship exhibition at Ormeley Lodge, Ham Common, in 1954.

John Russell is best known as a pastel painter, and works in oil by him are rare. This work however is similar to other known oil paintings by Russell, particularly in terms of its soft brushwork and treatment of light. For example, the portrait Sir William Herschel (National Maritime Museum) shows comparable highlights on the sitter’s nose and lips, outlining of the upper eye lids in black and frothy treatment of the cravat. A similar handling of paint is also evident in Russell’s oil portraits George Birkbeck (Ferens Art Gallery) and Mrs Charles Wesley in Old Age (John Wesley’s House and the Museum of Methodism), although the latter is an ‘attributed’ work. Indeed, the sfumato quality of the work (blended, soft focus, lack of hard outlines) and its stippled effects (short strokes or dots) recall effects found in Russell’s pastels, which he might have endeavoured to emulate in oil.

It is interesting to speculate whether, as Russell painted so-called ‘fancy pictures’ using his children, grandchildren and nephews and nieces as subjects, A boy in a red coat could in fact depict a family member. The British tradition of the single-figure ‘fancy picture’ was essentially European in origin and emerged in Britain during the first half of the 18th century, promoted by the French émigré painter Philip Mercier (1689-1760). Single-figure fancy pictures were not portraits but focussed on a subject with the intensity of a portrait, usually showing the subject engaged in some activity. Children were the most popular subject matter followed closely by a whole range of colourful characters including market women, servants and old beggars (for a discussion of the fancy picture see, Postle, Martin Angels and Urchins: The Fancy Picture in 18th-century British Art, London, 1998).

Russell was a prolific artist, exhibiting some 329 works at the Royal Academy of Art right up until his death, mainly in pastel. He was patronized by the wealthy middle classes, including doctors, lawyers and Methodist preachers, but also worked for the monarchy, becoming Crayon painter to the Prince of Wales in 1785, Painter to the King in 1790, and to the Duke of York two years later. He was also an astronomer and made serious lunar studies which today are held by the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford.

A boy in a red coat is an oil painting attributed to John Russell. The attribution is plausible given the painting’s soft, sfumato technique which is visible in both oil and pastel works by Russell. Russell was a prolific painter of portraits and fancy pictures, exhibiting some 329 paintings at the Royal Academy of Art, who was particularly renowned for his work in pastel and was also an astronomer.

P.34-1962