Rackstrow, Thomas Cox (McKechnie Section 2)

Recorded by Mr F. Gordon Roe (Women in Profile); known also from a silhouette, seen by Mr Graham Thomas, taken at Milton (possibly in Cambridgeshire) in 1816. Mr Roe quotes a passage from the collection of press cuttings from early English newspapers in the library of the Victoria and Albert Museum (Vol. V, p. 1388), dating from 1823-25:

UNION-HALL

On Wednesday the office was crowded with persons interested in a charge of fraud against Thomas Cox Rackstrow, the profile and flower painter of Lambeth Road. A great number of the defendant's pupils were among the crowd.

The following case, which was supported by a respectable solicitor named Judge, who said that his brother and mother had been defrauded of the sum of 401. by the defen-dant, notwithstanding which — [the remainder is missing]

As a `great number' of Rackstrow's pupils were present, no doubt he was an artist of talent and a teacher of repute. He was a flower-painter as well as a profilist, being probably (in the latter capacity at least) an itinerant artist. Mr Roe suggests that he may have been descended from Benjamin Rackstrow, who is known to have exhibited at the Free Society of Artists in 1763.

The example noted by Mr Graham Thomas (a profile of a man) was painted on card, and shaded in white. It was inscribed on the back as follows: 'T. C. Rackstrow/Profilist/to the Principal Nobility of the Kingdom/Milton/July, 1816.'