Thomas Rowlandson

b. July 14, 1757
d. April 21, 1827

Many references give the incorrect year of Rowlandson’s birth. Falk establishes with firm evidence that is 1757. He was born in his parents house on Old Artillery Lane, Tower Hamlet and was laid to rest in the Church Yard of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden.

Thomas Rowlandson and Dr. Syntax.

Background: The idea for the creation of the Dr. Syntax character is attributed to Rowlandson’s friend John Bannister. Rowlandson up to this point had created a number of “colored books” of prints on various subjects and was looking for something new to stimulate him. He had recently completed a swing through much of the English countryside, gathering mental images and sketches of what he saw. He wanted to create a series using that material where he could incorporate a “hero” who would immediately be ridiculous without the viewer having to think about it. At a dinner, Bannister came up with the idea of what the character should look like. It may have been mere coincidence, but Rowlandson already new two such characters to model his new “hero” after and they were the Rev. Ralph Baron, Vicar of St. Breward, who Rowlandson had already sketched preaching, and his own self portrait “of a lean and forlorn artist, riding through North Wales on an over weighted pony” (Falk). Thus was formed the pedantic character of Dr. Syntax.

Rudolf Ackermann would of course, publish the results and for the verse to accompany the drawings by Rowlandson, he would hire William Combe, who was quite good at generating the doggerel that such an endeavor would require. Combe, at the time was safely ensconced in the King’s Bench debtors’ prison as he was perennially hard-up. Rowlandson would do a sketch and it would be sent to Combe to generate the verse of the story. What is amazing is that neither artist or writer ever had any direct communication with each other. Ackermann began publishing the story and drawings as a series in his Poetical Magazine beginning in May 1809, and the series was a resounding success leading Ackermann to publish the material in book form.

These Works presented here: A selection of works from the three tours of Dr. Syntax. Hand colored engravings of scenes drawn by Thomas Rowlandson to complement the text of William Combe, as published by R. Ackermann, London, at various times and in various editions beginning in 1812. The selections here for the first tour, “The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque” are from the First American Edition, with plates copied from the Second London Edition, engraved, published and sold by William Charles, Philadelphia, in 1813. These engravings have a great amount of hand colored detail.

The books available on the first tour are: (#3501) the 1813 3rd London edition and (#3768) the 1823 miniature edition. The selections from the second tour - “Dr. Syntax in Search of Consolation” and the third tour- “Dr. Syntax in Search of a Wife” are from a publication later than the first editions (The 2nd tour first published in boards in late 1820, the 3rd tour in 1821.) and these prints are not as complete in the hand coloring of the details as those of the first editions. The engravings of the First Tour all generally have “Drawn and etched by Rowlandson” printed lower left of the image and in the lower center margin “London, pub. Aug. 16, 1813 at R. Ackermann’s Repository of Arts, 101 Strand” or similar. The images printed in the books are not always perfectly rectangular either or printed squarely on the page. The engravings from the 2nd and 3rd tour are marked only “Drawn by Rowlandson”.

References:

Thomas Rowlandson’s Doctor Syntax Drawings by Jerold J. Savory, 1997, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press (in the US)

Thomas Rowlandson, His Life and Art, by Bernard Falk, 1952, The Beechhurst Press.