Thomas Matthews Rooke (British painter) 1842 - 1942
Born in Marylebone, the son of a Jermyn Street tailor, Rooke trained at the South Kensington and Royal Academy Schools. Rooke was a gentle, endearing character. In 1869 he applied to work for Morris & Co., and this led to his appointment as Burne-Jones's studio assistant, a post he retained until Burne-Jones's death in 1898. He was a skillful and objective topographical draughtsman. John Ruskin sent him to Venice to record the mosaics of St Mark’s in 1871, and continued to employ him, often in France, until 1893, painting medieval buildings. Between 1879 and 1885 he was also employed by John Ruskin to record threatened landscapes and buildings in Italy. In the 1890s he kept a remarkable record of conversations in Burne-Jones's studio; passages are quoted in Lady Burne-Jones's Memorials, and a selection was published as Burne-Jones Talking in 1981. His later work was undertaken for The Society for the Preservation of Pictorial Record of Ancient Works of Art, at the instigation of Sydney Cockerell. Each trip Rooke took resulted in one major watercolour for the Society, and as many others as he liked, such as this, to sell on his own account. Burne-Jones once described his work as ‘more like a map than a picture.’
