Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
after Allan Ramsay (Edinburgh 1713 - Dover 1784)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1766 (after) - 1799
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
743 x 629 mm (29 1/4 x 24 3/4 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Berrington Hall, Herefordshire
NT 618105
Caption
Rousseau, the famous French-Swiss philosopher and moralist wears the black fur hat and fur-trimmed purple gown of his preferred Armenian attire which had aroused curiosity following his arrival in Britain in 1766. His revolutionary views on society, education and religion had caused him to escape from French persecution. Ramsay chose a dark background which highlights the fall of light on Rousseau's head and neck as he turns towards the viewer, holding his right hand firmly against his chest. Ramsay painted this celebrated and ultimately contentious portrait as a gift for his friend David Hume, Rousseau's host in London.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), after Allan Ramsay (Edinburgh 1713 - Dover 1784). A half-length portrait to left, facing, in a black fur hat and Armenian dress of purple-mauve gown trimmed with fur, which was was his preferred dress as according to his friend, David Hume: 'He has had an Infirmity from his Infancy, which makes Breeches inconvenient for him. This is a copy after the painting of 1766 in the National Gallery of Scotland. The orginal was painted for David Hume whom Rousseau had come to England with in January 1766 to escape from French persecution after writing Du Contrat Social (1762) and Lettres Ecrites de la Mantagne (1764).
Provenance
Part of the Elmar Digby (1911-1979) bequest, bequeathed by Mrs C.V.Lawson in 1981 OR accepted in part-payment of death-duties in 1954, and transferred to the National Trust
Makers and roles
after Allan Ramsay (Edinburgh 1713 - Dover 1784), publisher
References
Smart and Ingamells 1999 Alastair Smart and John Ingamells (ed.), Allan Ramsay A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, New Haven and London, Yale, 1999, no. 451 Brockwell 1915 Maurice Walter Brockwell, Catalogue of the Pictures and Other Works of Art in the Collection of Lord St Oswald at Nostell Priory, London 1915, no. 102