Landowner and art collector.
John Rushout, 2nd Baron Northwick
1770 - 1859
This person is the subject of ongoing research. We have started by researching their relationship to the enslavement of people.
Biographical notes
Summary of activity
John Rushout was the son of Sir John Rushout (1738–1800), the first Baron Northwick, and Rebecca, daughter of Humphrey Bowles of Wanstead, Essex. From 1793–1800 he was in Italy as an attaché to the ambassador to the King of Naples. During this period his extensive travels throughout the country nourished a developing interest in art, in particular painting of the Italian fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. In 1800 he succeeded his father as second Baron Northwick, and devoted himself to building his art collection, which was housed at Northwick Park, for which he built a special picture gallery in 1832. He later acquired Thirlestane House in Cheltenham, which he opened to the public. By 1851 his collection exceeded 1400 pictures. After his death Thirlestane House and its collection was sold (July – August 1859). A large part of the collection was bought by George Rushout-Bowles, MP and 3rd Baron Northwick, and taken to Northwick Park.
Rushout’s sister, Harriet Rushout, was the second wife of Sir Charles Cockerell (UCL Department of History, ‘Sir Charles Cockerell 1st Bart.’, in UCL Department of History (ed.), Legacies of British Slave-ownership [online], London 2020, <https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146011675)> accessed 30 July 2021), an East India Company official, East India banker and MP, whose firm was awarded compensation for several estates on Mauritius as mortgagees. In one further case he was shown as owner.
Slavery connections
He has a collateral connection in that his sister, Harriet Rushout, was the second wife of Sir Charles Cockerell, an East India Company official, East India banker and MP, whose firm was awarded compensation for several estates on Mauritius as mortgagees.
Abolition connections
No known connections with abolition.
National Gallery painting connections
Former owner: in 1859 the Gallery purchased the following paintings from Lord Northwick: Girolamo da Treviso, The Virgin and Child with Saints Joseph; Philip and James, and Filippo Fasanini at Prayer (NG623); Workshop of Giulio Romano, The Infant Jupiter guarded by the Corybantes on the Island of Crete (NG624); Moretto da Brescia, The Virgin and Child with Saint Bernardino and Other Saints (NG625); and Sandro Botticelli, Portrait of a Young Man (NG626).
The following pictures, once in the collection of Lord Northwick, were subsequently acquired by the National Galley: Annibale Carracci, Christ appearing to Saint Peter on the Appian Way (Domine, Quo Vadis?) (NG9); Bernardino Luini, Christ among the Doctors (NG18); Raphael, Saint Catherine of Alexandria (NG168); Lorenzo di Credi, The Virgin adoring the Child (NG648); Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, The Virgin and Child (NG728); Canaletto, Venice: A Regatta on the Grand Canal (NG938); Philips Wouwerman, A Stag Hunt (NG975); Gonzales Coques, Portrait of a Woman as Saint Agnes (NG1011); Giovanni Battista Bertucci the Elder, The Incredulity of Saint Thomas with a Donor from the Calderoni Family (NG1051); Italian, Portrait of a Young Man (NG1052); Possibly by El Greco, Saint Jerome as Cardinal (NG1122); Gerard ter Borch, Portrait of a Young Man (NG1399); Domenico Beccafumi, The Story of Papirius (NG1430); Follower of Lieven van Lathem, The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donors (NG1939); Francesco Francia, Bartolomeo Bianchini (NG2487); Domenico Beccafumi, Classical Heroines from a Sienese Bedchamber, Tanaquil, Marcia (NG6368, NG6369).
Bibliography
anon., 'Rushout, John, 2nd Baron Northwick', in J. Turner et al. (eds), Grove Art Online, Oxford 1998-, https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T074537
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History of Parliament Trust (ed.), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social & Local History, London 1964-, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/
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C. Sebag-Montefiore, 'Rushout, John, second Baron Northwick', in C. Matthew et al. (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 1992-, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/37924
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UCL Department of History (ed.), Legacies of British Slave-ownership, London 2020, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/
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Paintings previously owned by John Rushout, 2nd Baron Northwick
(Showing 6 of 25 works)
A group of fashionably dressed aristocrats canter and prance round a stag at bay, threatened by hounds in for the kill. Other riders gallop up or splash through the shallow river to join in the excitement, hat feathers flying and horns whooping. The horses in particular are beautifully painted in...
A young girl, her clothes sewn with hundreds of pearls, gazes out at us. She seems to be playing with a golden object made of concentric rings. This is an armillary sphere, a celestial globe showing the movement of heavenly bodies. Its interlocking circles are echoed in the decoration of her clot...
Not on display
Bartolomeo Bianchini was a nobleman and humanist scholar from Bologna – his name is written on the letter he holds. This is the earliest known use of a letter as a means of naming the sitter in an Italian portrait.The painted ledge makes it appear that we are looking through a window. Bianchini’s...
At the age of 12, Jesus was taken to the Temple in Jerusalem by Mary and Joseph, who became accidentally separated from him. They found him three days later debating learnedly with the theologians there (Luke 2: 41). This is the moment at which Christ first identifies himself as the son of God: ‘...
Not on display
Saint Peter fled Rome after Christ’s crucifixion, scared that he too would be executed by the Romans; here, he stands in shock as Christ passes him on the road. When Peter asked Christ where he was going – the question in this painting’s title – he replied that he was headed to Rome to be crucifi...
This is the left wing of a triptych (a painting in three parts) made for a convent near Delft in around 1510. The other panels, showing various episodes of the Crucifixion, are also in the National Gallery’s collection.Here we see Christ, his hands bound and the crown of thorns on his head, being...
Not on display
This panel is part of a series of decorations Beccafumi painted for the bedchamber of Francesco di Camillo Petrucci (b.1489), a wealthy merchant and landowner who was nephew of the ruler of the republic of Siena. The decorations were probably made to coincide with Francesco’s marriage to Caterina...
Not on display
A finely dressed young woman gazes assuredly out at the viewer. The distinct shape of her nose, the turn of her mouth and her faintly dimpled chin reveal that this is a portrait, though the sitter’s identity is unknown. She is shown in the guise of Saint Agnes, with the saint’s attributes of a la...
Not on display
In the early 1660s, when this portrait was made, this fancy outfit, bedecked with ruffles, ribbons and lace, was the height of sophisticated dressing, inspired by the latest fashions in Paris and employing the most expensive fabrics and tailoring.We don’t know who the sitter is, though it seems a...
Not on display
This elegant young man is dressed in an expensive black coat lined with lynx fur and a fine linen shirt embroidered in white around the neckline with delicate scrolling patterns. It is not possible to make out the emblem on his signet ring, which might have given us a clue to his identity. The co...
Not on display
This apparently simple portrait of a young man was revolutionary in Italian painting. Until this moment, artists painted people either in profile view, so only half their face was visible, or by turning them three-quarters to face the viewer.Here, Botticelli paints the boy head on, mapping his wh...
Not on display
Catherine of Alexandria, a fourth-century princess, was converted to Christianity and in a vision underwent a mystic marriage with Christ. When she would not give up her faith, Emperor Maxentius ordered that she be bound to a spiked wheel and tortured to death. However, a thunderbolt destroyed th...
Not on display
Possibly by El Greco
Once mistaken for a portrait of a cardinal, this painting in fact shows Saint Jerome dressed in cardinal’s robes. He was often painted this way as recognition of his high status in the Catholic Church, even though the office did not exist during his lifetime. His major achievement was to translat...
This panel is part of a series Beccafumi painted for the bedchamber of Francesco di Camillo Petrucci (b.1489), a wealthy merchant and landowner who was nephew of the ruler of the republic of Siena. The decorations were probably made to coincide with Francesco’s marriage to Caterina di Niccolò Man...
Not on display
This painting is so crowded it takes a while to understand everything that is happening, but the nuns for whom it was probably made must have had plenty of time to examine the details. It is the central panel of a triptych (a painting made up of three parts) painted around 1510, probably for the...
Not on display
This panel, which shows Christ’s body being taken down from the Cross, is the right wing of a triptych (a painting in three parts) made for a convent near Delft in around 1510. The other panels, which are also in the National Gallery’s collection, show Christ being led out after his trial and the...
Not on display
Saint Thomas, who doubted that Christ had risen from the dead, raises his finger to touch the spear wound in Christ’s side, an episode related in the Gospel of John (20: 20–29). Saint Thomas’s finger, the kneeling donor’s gaze and the parallel lines of the paving all point to Christ’s wound.The F...
Not on display
Workshop of Giulio Romano
In Greek and Roman mythology, the god Saturn was warned that one of his offspring would overthrow him, so he ate his children at birth. To protect their son, his wife Ops took the infant Jupiter to the island of Crete to be raised by the Corybantes, who used the rhythm of their dancing and the cl...
Not on display
This altarpiece was probably made for the high altar of a Franciscan church dedicated to the celebrated preacher Saint Bernardino of Siena (1380–1444). He is shown in the centre holding the sign of the name of Jesus (IHS) and a related text from the Gospel of John.Moretto da Brescia painted sever...
Not on display
The Roman boy Papirius was sworn to secrecy by his father when he accompanied him to the Senate. When his mother asked him what had been discussed, Papirius lied and claimed they had debated whether it was better for a man to have two wives or a woman two husbands. Papirius’s mother rallied the m...
Not on display
The Virgin Mary kneels on a grassy patch in the foreground, seemingly undisturbed by our intrusive gaze. Her hands are clasped in prayer as she faces her infant son, who is lying before her. His legs crossed, his right elbow resting on a pillow, he is focusing on something outside the picture.A r...
Not on display
A grave, statuesque young woman gazes down at a positively enormous child, who lies sideways across her lap. Her deep red gown is open to reveal her breast, which she offers to her son – though he seems uninterested. He turns his head away from his mother to look out at the viewer, at the same ti...
Not on display
Follower of Lieven van Lathem
A young man – the donor – kneels at the door of a late medieval building, and looks out into a walled garden where the Virgin Mary and Christ Child are seated on a flowering bench. He is Philip the Handsome, Archduke of Austria, King of Castile and ruler of the Low Countries.The painting was, how...
Not on display
Filippo Fasanini, who died in 1531, instructed the executors of his will to commission this altarpiece for his chapel dedicated to Saint Philip and Saint James in S. Domenico, Bologna. It is signed on the throne’s plinth: IERONIMVS. TREVISIVS. P.[INXIT] (‘Girolamo of Treviso painted this’).Filipp...
Not on display
This exhilarating scene shows the annual regatta (boat race) along Venice’s Grand Canal, and Canaletto has successfully captured the crowd’s excitement as the competitors skilfully manoeuvre their craft up the canal. Although many of the figures in the foreground have their backs to us, we still...
Not on display
You've viewed 6 of 25 paintings