Details of Sculptor

Surname

Rouw

Alternative Surname

First Name

Peter II

Initial of Surname

R

Year of Birth/Baptism

1771

Flourished

Year of Death

1852

Biographical Details

A versatile artist who worked as a sculptor, modelled wax portraits, cut gems and cameos and designed medals. He was born on 17 April 1771, the son of Peter Rouw I, and entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1788. He exhibited at the RA between 1787 and 1838 from London addresses in Portland Row, Norton Street, Portland Road, Upper Titchfield Street, Carmarthen Street and the New Road, and he sent a collection of his wax portraits to the Great Exhibition of 1851. He was appointed ‘sculptor-modeller of gems to HRH the Prince of Wales’ in 1807. Gunnis notes that in 1816 he received £23 for carving the tablet designed by Soane recording the history of Daylesford church which had been rebuilt by Warren Hastings. The bill for this has not been traced (219).
Rouw was a friend of Joseph Nollekens, who left him £100 and a slab of marble in his will, while Mrs Rouw received a legacy of £20. When the contents of Nollekens’s studio were sold after his death Rouw purchased several of his small terracotta models, perhaps including five presented to the Victoria and Albert Museum by Zoe Gordon-Smith.
He lost the sight of one eye in 1840 and by 1842 he seems to have been in financial difficulties, for the Royal Academy granted him £30 as a charitable gift. He died at Pentonville on 9 December 1852, and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery. Gunnis comments, ‘Rouw’s monuments are in the classic style; they are all well carved and a number of them have medallion portraits’ (Gunnis 1968, 332).
Literary References: Great Exhib 1851 (2), 153; Gunnis 1968, 332; Pyke 1973, 123-4; JKB 1998, 73