William Roberts (1862–1940)

William Roberts (1862–1940)

Roberts was an art critic for the London Times, starting as second critic under the chief, Humphry Ward (1845–1926), and advancing later to become the main art critic.
Robertsʼs career typified a phenomenon of professional British art history in the early twentieth century, whereby, according to Brian Allen, “the study of historic British painting was almost entirely in the hands of the art trade”. Roberts ranked as a leading so‐called “expert” who worked with London art dealers, authoring pamphlets designed to sell individual paintings. “These now rather rare and often sumptuous publications are invariably anonymous”, Allen remarks, “undoubtedly written by scholars who were cautious about protecting their anonymity”. Although he and others like him operated outside the institutional art establishment, “Roberts . . . would, for five pounds, write certificates of authenticity for any eighteenth‐century British picture placed in front of him” (Allen, “Paul Mellon and Scholarship in the History of British Art”, 45).