Richard Rothwell was a nineteenth-century Irish portrait and genre painter.

Biography

Rothwell was born in Athlone, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 to James and Elizabeth and was the oldest of their seven children. He trained to become a painter at the Dublin Society's school from 1814 until 1820 and won a silver medal for his work. At the age of 24, he was made a member of the newly established Royal Hibernian Academy

Royal Hibernian Academy

The Royal Hibernian Academy is an artist-based and artist-oriented institution in Ireland, founded in Dublin in 1823.-History:The RHA was founded as the result of 30 Irish artists petitioning the government for a charter of incorporation...

 and exhibited portraits there from 1826 to 1829. He subsequently moved to London and worked as a studio assistant to Thomas Lawrence

Thomas Lawrence

Thomas Lawrence may refer to:*Sir Thomas Lawrence, British artist, President of Royal Academy*Thomas Lawrence , mayor of colonial Philadelphia*T. E. Lawrence, "Lawrence of Arabia"*Thomas Lawrence , U.S. politician...

,. When Lawrence died in 1830, Rothwell completed many of his unfinished works and was poised to become the next foremost portrait painter in Britain and Ireland. According to Leoneé Ormond's biographical article in the Grove Dictionary of Art

Grove Dictionary of Art

Grove Art Online, formerly The Dictionary of Art but usually known as The Grove Dictionary of Art, is a large encyclopedia of art, now part of the online reference publications of Oxford University Press, and previously a 34-volume printed encyclopedia when last published on paper in 1996...

, Rothwell "was at the height of his powers from 1829 to 1831"; he "was much influenced by Lawrence, but he lacked the incisiveness and flair of his master". From 1831 to 1834, Rothwell toured Italy to study Italian art so that he could paint history painting

History painting

History painting is a genre in painting defined by subject matter rather than an artistic style, depicting a moment in a narrative story, rather than a static subject such as a portrait...

s. When he returned to London, his popularity had evaporated. Rothwell lived and exhibited works in Ireland, the United States, London, and Italy, but he never again achieved the same level of popularity he had reached in the late 1820s.

In 1842 Rothwell married Rosa Marshall; the couple had several children.

In 1868, Rothwell contracted a fever while working in Rome and died. Joseph Severn

Joseph Severn

Joseph Severn was an English portrait and subject painter and a personal friend of the famous English poet John Keats...

, who painted a portrait of the Romantic poet

Romantic poetry

Romanticism, a philosophical, literary, artistic and cultural era which began in the mid/late-1700s as a reaction against the prevailing Enlightenment ideals of the day , also influenced poetry...

 John Keats

John Keats

John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...

, arranged for Rothwell's funeral and tomb in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome

Protestant Cemetery, Rome

The Protestant Cemetery , now officially called the Cimitero acattolico and often referred to as the Cimitero degli Inglesi is a cemetery in Rome, located near Porta San Paolo alongside the Pyramid of Cestius, a small-scale Egyptian-style pyramid built in 30 BC as a tomb and later incorporated...

.

Work

According to Fintan Cullen's biographical entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Rothwell's "portraits are highly accomplished" and "fine examples" include those of novelist Gerald Griffin

Gerald Griffin

Gerald Griffin was an Irish novelist, poet and playwright.-Biography:He was born in Limerick, Ireland, the son of a brewer. He went to London in 1823 and became a reporter for one of the daily papers, and later turned to writing fiction...

 and Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...

. In the 1830s, he started painting genre pictures, such as The Poor Mendicants (1837). Rothwell usually painted Italian-inspired pieces, such as his semi-nude study Calisto (c. 1850s), a work he considered his masterpiece. He was furious when the painting was poorly hung at the 1862 International Exhibition in London and published a pamphlet on the topic.