THOMAS ROWLANDSON
(1756-1827)
 

Mr Henry Angelo’s Fencing Academy

1787

pen, grey and grey-black ink

and watercolour over pencil

on paper

34.8 x 51.3 cm

inscribed: T.Rowlandson 1787

P.115

Henry Angelo (1760-1839?) was amongst Rowlandson’s closest friends. His fencing academy in the Haymarket was visited in 1787 by the greatest swordsman of the day, the Chevalier St George, who presented Angelo with his portrait by Mather Brown (1761-1831), seen here hanging above the mantelpiece. There is another portrait of Henry Angelo by Mather Brown in the N.P.G. (NPG.5310).

In the 1998 exhibition catalogue Lindsay Stainton suggests that the fencer in the red jacket may be the Chevalier himself while his opponent may be the comic actor and friend of Rowlandson, Jack Bannister; the head in profile on the extreme right may be a self-portrait. A later version from 1791, now in the Frick Collection, New York, was aquatinted by P. Rosenberg. It differs in that the gentleman on the extreme left of the picture has been replaced by a young boy.        

Angelo’s fencing rooms over the entrance to the pit door of the Opera House in the Haymarket were destroyed by fire in 1789. He published his Reminiscences in two volumes 1828-30.

EJ/JM

PROVENANCE: Gooden & Fox; Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, from whom purchased by Gallery, March 1957.

EXHIBITIONS: Primitives to Picasso, London, R.A., 1962, no.367, as Mr Angelo’s Fencing School; Watercolours and Drawings from The Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford, London, Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, 1962, no.11; English Watercolours from The Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford, Reading, Reading Museum & Art Gallery, 1965, no.44; Watercolours from Bedford, Norwich, Norwich Castle Museum, 1965, no.48; British Portrait Exhibition, (Arts Council) Bucharest, Budapest, 1972-3; British Watercolours: A Golden Age 1750-1850, Lousiville, J.B. Speed Art Museum, 1977, no.36; The Art of Thomas Rowlandson, New York, Frick Art Museum, Pittsburgh, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1990, no.38; Art Treasures of England, London, R.A., 1998, no.216.

REFERENCES: M. Salaman, ‘A Group of Rowlandson Drawings’, Apollo, 1929, p.24, repr. p.21; A. Bury (ed.), ‘The Cecil Higgins Museum’ Bedford, Old Watercolour Society’s Club, 1961, vol. xxxvi, p.35, pl.XII; S. Somerville, British Watercolours: A Golden Age 1750 – 1850, 1977, p.56, no.36, repr. p.57; J. Hayes, The Art of Thomas Rowlandson, 1990, p.104, no.38, repr. p.105; Art Treasures of England The Regional Collections, 1998, p.282, no.216.   

Copyright © Trustees of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford.

Extract taken from Watercolours and Drawings, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery by Evelyn Joll.