Thomas Robinson Portrait of Thomas Romney Robinson

$5,995.00

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Thomas Robinson (British, before 1771-1810). Portrait of Thomas Romney Robinson, oil on canvas, early 19th century. A sizeable portrait painting by British artist Thomas Robinson, depicting his son, John Thomas Romney Robinson (1792-1882), who would grow up to be an important astronomer and director of the Armagh Observatory, one of the UK’s most reputable observatories of the time. In this composition, Robinson presents his son sitting on a boulder below a tree canopy while gazing toward the sky. Open books, a lyre, and a tree branch at the lower right symbolize the youth’s talents and passions as young Thomas was a child prodigy who “showed appreciation for music while still in the cradle … listened with rapt attention as his father read Wordsworth’s poems to him … by the age of three was an avid reader” and by age 13 had a volume of his poems published. In the end, the natural sciences would capture his heart. A large-scale portrait of Thomas Romney Robinson by his father, mounted in a custom period frame. Size: 63″ L x 45″ W (160 cm x 114.3 cm) Size (frame): 71.5″ L x 53″ W (181.6 cm x 134.6 cm)

More about Thomas Romney Robinson: Thomas also invented a device for measuring the speed of wind called the Robinson cup-anemometer in 1846. Highly respected within his field, Robinson was the president of the Royal Irish Academy from 1851 to 1856 and a leader in the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Finally, the Robinson crater on the moon was named in his honor, and a plant genus was named Romneya in his honor by Thomas Coulter.

Source for citations above: Sister Dolores Crowe, “Thomas Romney Robinson (1792-1882) Director of Armagh Observatory (1823-1882)” The Irish Astronomical Journal, Vol. 10 No. 3, September 1971.

About the Artist: Thomas Robinson was a British history and portrait painter. Born in the late 1760s near Lake Windermere in Westmorland, England, he was sometimes referred to as Thomas Robinson of Windermere. Robinson worked in Ireland – especially in Dublin, Lisburn and Belfast – from the 1790s until he passed away in 1810. Robinson was a student of George Romney, one of the leading British portrait painters of the period, and his work demonstrates Romney’s influence with a keen focus on compositon as well as the sitter’s character. Robinson and his wife, Ruth Buck, had several children, including Thomas Romney Robinson who would become an accomplished astronomer and mathematician. Today, Robinson’s paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Ulster Museum, the National Trust, and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum.

Of note, an engraved image of Thomas Romney Robinson at age 12, after the composition of this painting, and signed T. Robinson was used as an illustration for a book of poetry. Please see the Digital Collections of the New York Public Library (Image ID 2006510) for an image of this engraving

Condition: Areas of wear commensurate with age, presenting craquelure, discoloration, scuffs and the like. Evidence of old repairs and restoration as shown. Patches on verso from old repairs. Canvas has been relined. A few stains on verso. Mounted in custom frame which has been restored in areas, particularly at the corners as shown. Pigments have been tested via x-ray florescence and are consistent with the period.

Provenance: Private collection of important Hollywood family, collected between 1930 and 1980

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