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Major Robert Rogers was a British military officer in colonial America. Born in Massachusetts in 1731, he moved with his parents to New Hampshire as a child. [1] As early as age fifteen, he saw military action as a member of small militias. Later, in adulthood, he was celebrated for forming an independent militia known as “Rogers’s Rangers” that engaged in skirmishes in New England and upstate New York during the French and Indian War. His “Rules for Ranging” are distributed to Army Rangers even today.
Rogers met and married Elizabeth Browne in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Joseph Blackburn’s 1761 portrait of Elizabeth Browne Rogers, likely commissioned to mark her marriage to Major Rogers, is in the Reynolda House collection.
Rogers was a talented military officer, but he expended a great deal of his personal income outfitting his Rangers and experienced financial hardship as a result. He traveled to England twice to appeal to George III to relieve the debt he had incurred in defense of the crown. During the first trip, in 1765, the king named him governor of Michilimackinac in present-day Michigan. After he returned to America, Major and Mrs. Rogers traveled together to the western outpost, but encountered difficulties when Rogers was accused of treason. There is some speculation that the accusations were trumped up by a rival military officer, and Rogers was acquitted in 1768, but his reputation was permanently damaged.
Rogers’s second visit to England lasted six years, from 1769 to 1775. The separation seems to have taken its toll on Elizabeth, and the major wrote very defensive letters to his wife about his absence. [2] It is highly likely, although no documentation has been located to support the theory, that it was during this period in London that his likeness was taken for the print published by Thomas Hart in 1776. The German copperplate engraver and publisher Johann Martin Will published an engraving after Hart’s print the same year. [4] Will’s print is engraved with the words “Ioh. Martin Will excudit Aug. Vind.” “Aug. Vind.” stands for “Augustae Vindelicorum,” the original Latin name for Augsburg, Germany. Thus the inscription translates as “Johann Martin Will published [this in] Augsburg [Germany].” It is not known why a German printmaker would make copies after a mezzotint of a British officer in colonial America, but in fact he did more than one, including an engraving after Hart’s mezzotint depicting General John Sullivan, a Revolutionary War hero from New Hampshire.
In Will’s print after Hart, Rogers is depicted in a three-quarter-length pose. In his left hand, he holds a musket, and his right hand rests on his hip. He looks off to the side in a serious and thoughtful pose. He is dressed in an elaborate uniform, with a jacket, waistcoat, sash, and plumed hat. The figures of three Native Americans—bare-chested, holding spears, and wearing elaborate feathered headdresses—are visible over his left shoulder. They reference both the battles in which Rogers bested such tribes as the Abenakis, but also to the parlays he held with Native Americans when he was governor of Michilimackinac. The inscription on the bottom reads, “Major Robert Rogers,/Commander in Chief of the Indians in the Back Settlements of America./Publish’d as the Act directs, Octr. 1, 1776, by Thos. Hart London.”
Rogers’s career ended ignominiously. Elizabeth divorced him in 1778 for desertion and infidelity. Always loyal to the crown, he returned to England, where he lived the rest of his life destitute and frequently heavily inebriated. He died in 1795. Elizabeth remarried, to the naval officer John Roche, and died in 1813.
In the early 1960s, Charles H. Babcock (1899–1967) gave the house and its contents, presumably including this print, to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The house was then incorporated as a museum and collection—Reynolda House, Inc.—on December 18, 1964, with the signing of the charter at its first board meeting. The museum first opened to the public in September 1965.
Notes:
[1] John R. Cuneo, Robert Rogers of the Rangers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), 4 and 6.
[2] Ann Marie Wambeke, “Robert and Elizabeth Rogers: The Dissolution of an Early American Marriage,” in Denver Brunsman and Joel Stone, eds., Revolutionary Detroit: Portraits in Political and Cultural Change, 1760-1805 (Detroit, MI: Detroit Historical Society, 2009, 51.
[3] http://www.googleartproject.com/collection/the-museum-of-fine-arts-houston/artwork/major-robert-rogers-commander-in-chief-of-the-indians-in-the-back-settlements-of-america-thomas-hart/30369300/
[4] Allgemeines Lexikon Der Bildenden Künstler (Leipzig: Verlag Von E. A. Seemann, 1947, 36), 7.
ProvenanceFrom 1964
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, acquired in 1964. [1]
Notes:
[1] In the early 1960s Charles H. Babcock (1899-1967) gave the house and its contents to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The house was then incorporated as a museum and collection (Reynolda House, Inc.) on December 18, 1964 with the signing of the charter at its first board meeting. The museum first opened to the public in September 1965.
Exhibition History
DepartmentHistoric House
Major Robert Rogers
Date1776
MediumMezzotint
DimensionsFrame: 18 1/4 × 13 1/8 in. (46.4 × 33.3 cm)
Other (Plate Size): 14 5/8 × 9 3/4 in. (37.1 × 24.8 cm)
Signed<unsigned>
Credit LineReynolda Estate
Object number1966.2.105
DescriptionJohann Martin Will (German, 1727–1806/7) was a noted engraver and publisher who specialized in historical subjects and maps, many dealing with colonial America. Thomas Hart was an engraver and publisher active in late eighteenth-century England. Major Robert Rogers was a British military officer in colonial America. Born in Massachusetts in 1731, he moved with his parents to New Hampshire as a child. [1] As early as age fifteen, he saw military action as a member of small militias. Later, in adulthood, he was celebrated for forming an independent militia known as “Rogers’s Rangers” that engaged in skirmishes in New England and upstate New York during the French and Indian War. His “Rules for Ranging” are distributed to Army Rangers even today.
Rogers met and married Elizabeth Browne in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Joseph Blackburn’s 1761 portrait of Elizabeth Browne Rogers, likely commissioned to mark her marriage to Major Rogers, is in the Reynolda House collection.
Rogers was a talented military officer, but he expended a great deal of his personal income outfitting his Rangers and experienced financial hardship as a result. He traveled to England twice to appeal to George III to relieve the debt he had incurred in defense of the crown. During the first trip, in 1765, the king named him governor of Michilimackinac in present-day Michigan. After he returned to America, Major and Mrs. Rogers traveled together to the western outpost, but encountered difficulties when Rogers was accused of treason. There is some speculation that the accusations were trumped up by a rival military officer, and Rogers was acquitted in 1768, but his reputation was permanently damaged.
Rogers’s second visit to England lasted six years, from 1769 to 1775. The separation seems to have taken its toll on Elizabeth, and the major wrote very defensive letters to his wife about his absence. [2] It is highly likely, although no documentation has been located to support the theory, that it was during this period in London that his likeness was taken for the print published by Thomas Hart in 1776. The German copperplate engraver and publisher Johann Martin Will published an engraving after Hart’s print the same year. [4] Will’s print is engraved with the words “Ioh. Martin Will excudit Aug. Vind.” “Aug. Vind.” stands for “Augustae Vindelicorum,” the original Latin name for Augsburg, Germany. Thus the inscription translates as “Johann Martin Will published [this in] Augsburg [Germany].” It is not known why a German printmaker would make copies after a mezzotint of a British officer in colonial America, but in fact he did more than one, including an engraving after Hart’s mezzotint depicting General John Sullivan, a Revolutionary War hero from New Hampshire.
In Will’s print after Hart, Rogers is depicted in a three-quarter-length pose. In his left hand, he holds a musket, and his right hand rests on his hip. He looks off to the side in a serious and thoughtful pose. He is dressed in an elaborate uniform, with a jacket, waistcoat, sash, and plumed hat. The figures of three Native Americans—bare-chested, holding spears, and wearing elaborate feathered headdresses—are visible over his left shoulder. They reference both the battles in which Rogers bested such tribes as the Abenakis, but also to the parlays he held with Native Americans when he was governor of Michilimackinac. The inscription on the bottom reads, “Major Robert Rogers,/Commander in Chief of the Indians in the Back Settlements of America./Publish’d as the Act directs, Octr. 1, 1776, by Thos. Hart London.”
Rogers’s career ended ignominiously. Elizabeth divorced him in 1778 for desertion and infidelity. Always loyal to the crown, he returned to England, where he lived the rest of his life destitute and frequently heavily inebriated. He died in 1795. Elizabeth remarried, to the naval officer John Roche, and died in 1813.
In the early 1960s, Charles H. Babcock (1899–1967) gave the house and its contents, presumably including this print, to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The house was then incorporated as a museum and collection—Reynolda House, Inc.—on December 18, 1964, with the signing of the charter at its first board meeting. The museum first opened to the public in September 1965.
Notes:
[1] John R. Cuneo, Robert Rogers of the Rangers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), 4 and 6.
[2] Ann Marie Wambeke, “Robert and Elizabeth Rogers: The Dissolution of an Early American Marriage,” in Denver Brunsman and Joel Stone, eds., Revolutionary Detroit: Portraits in Political and Cultural Change, 1760-1805 (Detroit, MI: Detroit Historical Society, 2009, 51.
[3] http://www.googleartproject.com/collection/the-museum-of-fine-arts-houston/artwork/major-robert-rogers-commander-in-chief-of-the-indians-in-the-back-settlements-of-america-thomas-hart/30369300/
[4] Allgemeines Lexikon Der Bildenden Künstler (Leipzig: Verlag Von E. A. Seemann, 1947, 36), 7.
ProvenanceFrom 1964
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, acquired in 1964. [1]
Notes:
[1] In the early 1960s Charles H. Babcock (1899-1967) gave the house and its contents to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The house was then incorporated as a museum and collection (Reynolda House, Inc.) on December 18, 1964 with the signing of the charter at its first board meeting. The museum first opened to the public in September 1965.
Exhibition History
Status
Not on view
Object/Object
