George Rouse

From a 1925 article by A.J. Wall: "In the summer of 1924 there appeared on the market in London, England, some wax profiles of "Gen. George Washington" signed "G. Rouse, Sculpt 1797." One of these marked "Gen. Washington" but unsigned was purchased for a very nominal sum and later a second copy with Rouse's name was offered and accepted as a copy of the first. Upon their arrival here a comparison seemed to indicate the work was by the same hand but with the usual differences of wax portraits in the ribbon tying the hair and the shirt frill or stock; both mounted on a wax background set in old frames with the lettering scratched in the wax done by the same hand. It was not long after the arrival of these waxes that one appeared in a sale signed G. Rouse, which had been painted over with the buff and blue uniform colors. Another copy was shown to me by a dealer and three others were reported in shops abroad. A search for data concerning G. Rouse was unsuccessful but produced the following information from Mr. F.D. Sladen, Superintendent of the reading Room of the British Museum. In a letter Mr. Sladen writes: "We have been quite unable to trace a wax portrait of the artist of the name of Rouse and it seems very doubtful whether such a man ever existed. I am enclosing a few notes kindly written for me by an officer in the department of Ceramics which throws a great deal of light of the matter & which I am sure will interest you. The Mr. Hobson mentioned is the Keeper of the Department of Ceramics." The information furnished by the officer in the office of Mr. R.R. Hobson, Keeper of the Department of Ceramics in the British Museum, follows: "Counterfeit wax portraits were current in London during the last year. They were made by a very clever artist named X --- a man in very poor circumstances, who sold them to anyone who came to him. It is believed that he did not himself offer them as genuine, but those who bought them from here were not so scrupulous."