This portrait miniature of Richard Rouse (1774-1852), builder of Rouse Hill House in the Parramatta district of New South Wales, seems to be a mourning object, a variant on the more usual mourning brooch. It is apparently derived from a crayon portrait (HR87/5 ] by William Griffith, a local Parramatta artist who in the 1840s enjoyed a reputation as 'an excellent likeness painter', particularly renowned for his crayon portraits. Rouse was a substantial landholder in the Parramatta and Hawkesbury districts. Rouse was a substantial landholder in the Parramatta and Hawkesbury districts and has been described as the 'type of pioneer that the colony needed, a devoted family man, a loyal member of the Church of England, a hard-working and honest public servant and a very efficient grazier'. [ref: Marjorie Lenehan, entry for Richard Rouse in the
Australian Dictionary of Biography].
