Anne Rushout | Rushout’s Wanstead | Rushout on Tour
Here are some images of various UK locations, painted by Lady Anne Rushout (1768-1849) of Wanstead Grove.
Anne Rushout was a friend of Catherine Tylney-Long, the heiress of Wanstead House. Click here to pre-order Geraldine Roberts’ book Angel and The Cad, which is based on our research, to be published by Pan MacMillan in June 2015
Ely Cathedral- 1829
The River Mersey looking towards ‘Toxteth Park- on the right c.1832
Southend-on-Sea 1832 – still looks familiar
Nice little self-portrait of Anne Rushout outside Hornsey Church
The Menai Bridge (1830)
Ludlow Castle (1830)
Essex, looking towards Claybury from Woodford – Lady Anne in foreground
Holkham House, June 1824
Hatfield House – 1832
Gwrych Castle 1830
Finborough Hall, 1824
Eastnor Castle, Herefordshire (1824)
Dover Castle (1831)
Bridge & Castle, Conwy (1830)
Chichester, 1828
An oblique view of Brighton Pavilion, 1828
Birkenhead Abbey ruins, 1830
Bersted Lodge, near Bognor (1831)
Alton Towers sans rollercoasters (1831)
All images courtesy of Yale University – Accessed on line November 8th 2014
Hi, Greg — what a GREAT thrill to see so many of Anne Rushout’s images (Bersted Lodge was the only one I was familiar with). Anne and her siblings come up in diaries and letters in my research. An 1801 letter mentions a connection with the painter Margaret Meen. Miss Meen was a “flower painter”, but it does sometimes seem a small circle, where artists and pupils knew each other (or knew of each other, at the very least).
Am dipping into your website, and love what I’m finding. A fascinating family – which may even have a Jane Austen connection (if you’ve not read it, I highly recommend Janine Barchas’s book, Matters of Fact in Jane Austen. Thanks, for the tip-off about the upcoming (2015) biography (after Janine’s book, I’m longing to read more), and for the nod to my own blog re: Bersted Lodge.
Kelly
Thanks for your lovely reply Janeite – your blog was very useful when I was researching Lady Anne so it was only fair to credit you.
I am indeed familiar with Janine Barchas’ book. Austen’s character Catherine Morland certainly was modelled on Catherine Tylney-Long of Draycot House.
Geraldine Roberts’ book ‘Angel and the Cad’ will reveal the full story!
HI, again – the work you are both doing is of GREAT interest; and next summer will be here before we know it.
Kelly
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Thanks so much for your comments – I have put a link to your post on Twitter via @geggly
How fascinating to see the extant artwork of an amateur, and to see all the mistakes of someone with a basic but mediocre training, that are presumably typical of the artwork of a lady of the period. It’s nice to see a full range of her abilities from the sadly ineffective Birkenhead Abbey ruins to the truly competent Dover Castle. As the former is a later painting, I can only assume she was having an ‘off’ day! How close she came to being good, and how frustrated she must have been that her buildings don’t quite look right. As a better teacher of perspective art of architecture than I am at producing it, I sympathise.
Thanks for your comments, though I think they may be a little harsh. These images were taken from three sketch books at University of Yale, and are amongst quite a few drafts. I hope the loss of accuracy in some of the views may be compensated by their beauty – A fascinating window into late Regency Britain.
don’t get me wrong, I think they are charming! but I know how frustrating it can be to be close to getting something right…it brought me to a close fellow feeling with her.
I think you made a valid point Sarah. After all Lady Anne was only a painter by hobby, and perhaps being a woman meant she was never granted access to the best tutorship.
She was ahead of her time in terms of design and build of her beautiful house at Wanstead Grove, a keen botanist, and managed a 60-acre estate. I am glad her sketches have attracted such a great response.
The ones for Wanstead are very accurate since several of the buildings featured lasted long enough to be photographed prior to demoilition
Thanks again for your comments!
… as so often, women of talent let down by the customs of the time. I want to give her a hug…. she sounds a most extraordinary woman, and has become one of the people of the past on my ‘I want to talk to when I die and have a chance’ list….
Hi, Sarah and Greg — I have an original image from Yale of Bersted Lodge, and could point out to one of my blog-readers that the perspective isn’t quite (in the full photo) what you see here. So do keep in mind, these are bound books – some of the errors in perspective are due to the photography and the cropping.
As to women artists… why is it when women practice an art it’s a hobby, but when a man makes sketches the ‘reception’ of HIS work is almost always immediate raised?
I’ve several very important names in the Smith & Gosling family among the art world; some gave lessons, some gave advice.
I, too, have looked at the drawings included here (nice selection, Greg) and given the dates the differences cannot be attributed to the advance of talent over the years. So one thing that springs to mind to ask is, although they are all watercolors (I presume that Anne Rushout considered each drawing “finished” once she applied color), do some perhaps represent a LACK of TIME to do her subject justice? Sometimes people went out in “sketching parties”; but sometimes you nipped out, grabbed an image you wanted to keep for posterity while others were at breakfast knowing the horses would soon haul you out of town.
k
Hi Kelly
I have to agree with you about the dismissive way women of talent seem to have been treated by history.
In regard to timescales for pictures drawn, it certainly seems likely that Lady Anne did quite a number of sketches ‘on the go’ especially the ones in Wales. What ended up in these books might only be drafts for later more accurate versions. Yale’s website does say that the images are watercolours.
I think the pictures at Wanstead Grove were probably drawn for pleasure over the many years Lady Anne spent at home, for they certainly do have greater accuracy one would expect from repeatedly drawing the same subject.
Greg
Good point, bringing up the idea of “a study”; would explain the hastier under-drawing, as well as the application of color – for one would want some indication, if and when the “study” was returned to, of coloring.
k
Being rapid aides memoires done with limited time would make sense. And yes, it is a shame that women of talent were rarely taken seriously. I have to say I am really impressed with her treatment of the riverine craft in several pictures where she demonstrates an understanding of the rigging that not all artists of either sex can manage. I take the point about the angle of photography which might account for the squatness of Ely Cathedral, though I suspect that’s more a case of running out of paper and wanting to get it all on and the page seems to be square on. We don’t get shown any handwritten notes over or opposite which adorn most artists’ sketchbooks, especially if intending to use a sketch to work up a larger, more finished piece later. As an artist who can’t paint buildings [Primarily a botanist] I admire. But I also can see where there could be improvement, which is not in anywise a denegration of her skills, merely a professional comment of one artist regarding another. I’d love to exchange notes with her. That octagonal thing in Chichester is enough to make any artist weep.
Hi, Sarah – I had to go back up and check out the Chichester view; GOSH! The Market Cross is SO “finished”, and yet look at the background buildings – lightly sketched. You’re right, it is a neat picture. Thanks to YOU I went back for a second look. k
They are worth a second and third look. She plainly took ages with that market cross, wrestling with its horrible to draw perspective, and then had to finish in a hurry…. I so would have loved a chance to sketch with her! I’m sure we’d have exchanged a few opinions about the scenes…
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