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Thomas Rowlandson, 1756–1827, British, The Connoisseurs, ca. 1790

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Creator:

Thomas Rowlandson, 1756–1827

Title:

The Connoisseurs

Date:

ca. 1790

Materials & Techniques:

Watercolor with pen and red, brown and black ink over graphite on medium, slightly textured, cream wove paper

Dimensions:

Sheet: 9 x 12 inches (22.9 x 30.5 cm), Mount: 9 1/4 x 12 5/16 inches (23.5 x 31.3 cm)

Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Watermark: J Whatman. Heawood Pl. 465

Inscribed in black ink, lower center: "The Connoisseurs"

Credit Line:

Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Copyright Status:

Public Domain

Accession Number:

B1975.3.106

Classification:

Drawings & Watercolors

Collection:

Prints and Drawings

Subject Terms:

Access:

Accessible by appointment in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details.

Link:

https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:6510

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Like many of his fellow artists, Rowlandson continually mocked the foibles of connoisseurs in a variety of ways over the course of his career. Around the time he made this drawing, the eighteenth-century culture of connoisseurship had received a major boost, as art flowed more freely than ever in the wake of the French Revolution (Bermingham, 1995, p. 503). As Archibald Alison put it, echoing earlier authors, the “fine arts are . . . addressed to the imagination, and the pleasures they afford, are described . . . as the Pleasures of the Imagination” (Alison, 1790, p. 1). In this instance three connoisseurs pay a visit to an artist's studio to judge his latest offering: a historical painting of Susanna and the Elders. While the artist gazes at the ceiling in a pose of studied nonchalance, they study his unfinished canvas. But rather than enjoy the pleasures of the imagination, these connoisseurs are content to stop at the pleasures of the flesh. Like latter-day Elders, they lust over the nude Susanna, just as their forebears had in the apocryphal addition to the Book of Daniel. One viewer seats himself within a few inches of the easel to gawk at her body, his desiccated companion peers through an eyeglass and licks his lips, and a third smirks gleefully from a greater distance. Typically for Rowlandson the humor lies in the incongruous juxtaposition of contrasts: the beauty of Susanna and the ugliness of the connoisseurs; Susann’'s innocence and the connoisseurs’ lust; her youth and their age. The heart of the satire, however, is found in the men's hands, which grasp their walking sticks and eyeglasses with desperate tension. Ironically when it comes to enjoying real women, Rowlandson suggests these impotent old lechers will be forced to confine themselves to the pleasures of the imagination.

Matthew Hargraves

John Baskett, Paul Mellon's Legacy: a Passion for British art: Masterpieces from the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, cat. no. 66, N5220 M552 P38 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)

An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Royal Academy of Arts, 2007-10-20 - 2008-01-27) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Paul Mellon's Legacy : A Passion for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-04-18 - 2007-07-29) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-04-18 - 2007-07-29) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Thomas Rowlandson from the Paul Mellon Collection (National Sporting Library and Museum, 2005-04-14 - 2005-06-10) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Line of Beauty : British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century (Yale Center for British Art, 2001-05-19 - 2001-08-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

The Burlington Fine Art and Antique Dealers' Fair Ltd. (Royal Academy of Arts, 1982-03-12 - 1982-03-21) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Bernard Berenson and the Connoisseurship of Early Italian Painting (National Gallery of Art, 1979-01-21 - 1979-05-13) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Rowlandson Drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection (Royal Academy of Arts, 1978-03-04 - 1978-05-28) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Rowlandson Drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection (Yale Center for British Art, 1977-11-16 - 1978-01-15) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

English Drawings and Watercolors from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon (Yale University Art Gallery, 1965-04-15 - 1965-06-20) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

A loan exhibition of English drawings and watercolours from the collection of Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon of Upperville, Virginia, P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London, 1964, no. 26, N5247.M385 L62 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Archibald Alison, Essays on the nature and principles of taste, Dublin, 1790, p. 1, Available online in Orbis [ORBIS]

John Baskett, Paul Mellon's Legacy: a Passion for British Art: Masterpieces from the Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, p. 273, no. 66, pl. 66, N5220 M552 P38 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Ann Bermingham, The consumption of culture, 1600-1800, Image, object, text , Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group), New York, 1995, p. 503, DA485 C667 1995 (YCBA) [YCBA]

John Brewer, The pleasures of the imagination : English culture in the eighteenth century, HarperCollins, London, 1997, pp. 279-81, fig. 101, DA485 .B74 1997 (YCBA) [YCBA]

David Alan Brown, Berenson and the connoisseurship of Italian painting : A handbook to the exhibition, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1979, p. 31, no. 66, ND615 .B46 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Vic Gatrell, The first bohemians : life and art in London's golden age, , Allen Lane, London, 2013, pp. 218, 324-325, pl. 14, NX544.L6 G37 2013 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Kay Dian Kriz, Slavery, sugar, and the culture of refinement : picturing the British West Indies, 1700-1840, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, p. 92, fig. 45, N8214.5.W38 K75 2008 (LC) (YCBA) [YCBA]

Paul Mellon's Legacy : a passion for British art [large print labels], , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, v. 2, no. 66, N5220 M552 P381 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Ronald Paulson, Rowlandson : A new interpretation, Oxford University Press, New York, 1972, pp. 83-5, ill. 48, NJ18 .R79 P38 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Deanna Petherbridge, The primacy of drawing : Histories and theories of practice, , Yale University Press, New Haven, 2010, pp. 370-71, pl. 274, NC53 P48 2010 + (YCBA) [YCBA]

John Riely, Rowlandson drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1977, pp. 27-8, no. 37, pl. XXII, NJ18 .R79 R68 (LC) (YCBA) [YCBA]

Scott Wilcox, Line of beauty : British drawings and watercolors of the eighteenth century, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2001, p. 181, no. 154, NC228 W53 2001 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Yale University Art Gallery, English drawings and watercolors from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, April 15-June 20,1965, , New Haven, 1965, no. 26, NC228 Y34 (YCBA) [YCBA]

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