Oil paint on canvas
Tate Britain
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-wright-of-derby-615" aria-label="More by Joseph Wright of Derby" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joseph Wright of Derby</a>
Sir Brooke Boothby
Bequeathed by Miss Agnes Ann Best 1925
actions: postures and motions
adults
arts and entertainment
baronet
book, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
Boothby, Brooke, 7th Bt
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contemplation
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
forest
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<p>Brooke Boothby was a Derbyshire landowner, and an amateur poet and philosopher. Wright depicts him fashionably dressed, reclining by a stream in woodland. His hand rests on a book, his forefinger pointing to the name ‘Rousseau’ on its spine. Boothby was very proud of his associations with the Swiss philosopher. He published the first volume of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s autobiographical <span>Dialogues</span> in 1780. Shown here deep in thought, this portrait expresses Boothby’s sympathy with Rousseau’s philosophies, especially the ideals of harmony with nature and solitary contemplation.</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2020</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
15 June 2005 – 4 September 2005
2005-09-04
15 June 2005 – 4 September 2005
2005-09-04
2005-06-15
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2005-06-15
A Picture of Britain
Exhibition
1 October 2006 – 10 September 2007
2007-09-10
1 October 2006 – 9 January 2007
2007-01-09
2006-10-01
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (Paris, France)
2006-10-01
Citizens and Kings, Portraiture in the Age of David and Goya, 1770 - 1830
Loan-out
29 July 2010 – 14 March 2011
2011-03-14
6 August 2010 – 14 March 2011
2011-03-14
2010-08-06
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2010-07-29
Romantics 2
Collection based display
2 September 2011 – 15 April 2012
2012-04-15
2 September 2011 – 15 April 2012
2012-04-15
2011-09-02
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2011-09-02
Romantics
Collection based display
30 November 2012 – 24 July 2022
2022-07-24
1 December 2012
2012-12-01
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-11-30
Gallery 14
Collection based display
11 February 2013 – 2 June 2013
2013-06-02
12 February 2013 – 2 June 2013
2013-06-02
2013-02-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2013-02-11
Looking at the View
Collection based display
26 March 2015 – 27 May 2020
2020-05-27
26 March 2015 – 21 June 2015
2015-06-21
2015-03-26
Museo Nacional de Arte (Mexico City, Mexico)
18 July 2015 – 18 October 2015
2015-10-18
2015-07-18
Pinacoteca do Estado (São Paulo, Brazil)
27 April 2018 – 5 August 2018
2018-08-05
2018-04-27
Shanghai Art Museum (Shanghai, China)
4 September 2018 – 13 November 2018
2018-11-13
2018-09-04
National Art Museum of China (Beijing, China)
27 November 2019 – 27 May 2020
2020-05-27
2019-11-27
Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hong Kong, China)
2015-03-26
British Landscape
Tate partnerships & programmes
26 September 2022
26 September 2022
2022-09-26
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2022-09-26
Gallery 14
Collection based display
Sir Brooke Boothby
support: 1486 × 2076 mm
frame: 1740 × 2315 × 90 mm
Bequeathed by Miss Agnes Ann Best 1925
<p>Brooke Boothby (c.1744-1824) was an amateur poet and philosopher and eldest son of Sir Brooke Boothby of Ashbourne Hall, Derbyshire.  As a young man he was a prominent figure in London society and a member of the literary circle at Lichfield which included Dr Erasmus Darwin, Thomas Day and Miss Anna Seward.  At the age of 22 he became acquainted with the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who spent fifteen months from 1776-7 at Wootton Lodge, Staffordshire, not far from Boothby's home.  Nearly ten years later, Boothby called on Rousseau in Paris and the philosopher entrusted him with the manuscript for the first volume of his autobiographical <i>Dialogues</i>, which he was anxious to have published, preferably in England. As a result, <i>Rousseau, Juge de Jean Jacques</i> was published in 1780, two years after the philosopher's death and at Boothby's expense.  Boothby was delighted with his success and so proud of his associations with Rousseau, that he commissioned Wright to paint his <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portrait</span></a> as an illustration of Rousseau's philosophy.

</p><p>Wright has attempted to convey in the portrait Rousseau's belief in the importance of man living in harmony with nature.  He has deliberately chosen a landscape format, depicting the poet lying by a stream in a woodland setting. The key to the work is the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/v/vellum" title="Glossary definition for 'Vellum'"><span>vellum</span></a>-bound volume, which Boothby is holding. The poet indicates with his left forefinger the name ROUfSEAU, inscribed on the spine.  His pose looks back to the melancholy tradition in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/elizabethan" title="Glossary definition for 'Elizabethan'"><span>Elizabethan</span></a> portraiture: he lies full length on the ground, propping up his head on his right hand, in a setting of trees which obscure the light. The implication is not that Boothby is in a state of depression, but that his mind is distracted by more elevated concerns than the humdrum preoccupations of this world. His unbuttoned waistcoat and sleeves give him a deliberately dishevelled appearance, and yet Wright has dressed him in the double-breasted frock coat, wide-brimmed hat and plain muslin cravat then in fashion.

</p><p>Boothby admired Wright's work and bought a number of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscapes</span></a> and a small portrait from him. He also used his influence to attract visitors to Wright's one-man exhibition at Robin's Rooms, Covent Garden in 1785. In later life, Boothby contented himself with writing poetry and political essays, and also published his own translation of Racine's <i>Britannicus</i>. He married and had one daughter, Penelope, who died at the age of five.  Boothby commissioned Thomas Banks to <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/sculpture" title="Glossary definition for 'Sculpture'"><span>sculpt</span></a> a monument for the chapel of Ashbourne Church, which shows the child lying full-length, just as her father appears in Wright's portrait. 

</p><p><b>Further reading:<br/></b>Judy Egerton, <i>Wright of Derby</i>, Tate Gallery 1990, pp.116-118, reproduced p.116.<br/>Frederick Cummings, 'Boothby, Rousseau and the Romantic Malady', <i>Burlington Magazine</i>, vol.110, no.789, 1968, pp.659-66.

</p><p>Frances Fowle<br/>November 2000</p>
Summary
2005-12-22T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div class="text">
<p>Unusually, the Derbyshire landowner Brooke Boothby is pictured reclining by a stream despite his elegant attire. The book he’s holding offers the clue to this. Boothby points to the name ‘Rousseau’ (the Swiss philosopher) on the spine. Boothby had published Rousseau’s first volume of Dialogues in 1780. His reverie and woodland surroundings express Boothby’s sympathy with Rousseau’s ideas, especially harmony with nature. His pose was associated with ‘melancholy’, a term alluding to deep contemplation beyond worldly concerns in the 18th century. These flattering elements present Boothby as a man of deep sensibility.</p>
</div>

Online caption
2023-11-30T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
actions: postures and motions adults arts and entertainment baronet book, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques Boothby, Brooke, 7th Bt clothing and personal items collector / patron contemplation emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas forest hat idyll individuals: male landscape leisure and pastimes literary man named individuals objects people poet portraits reading reading, writing, printed matter reclining recreational activities royalty and social rank stream universal concepts water: inland work and occupations