Watercolor with pen and gray and brown ink over graphite on moderately thick, moderately textured, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 5 3/4 x 9 1/2 inches (14.6 x 24.1 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B2001.2.1161
Classification:
Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
frames (furnishings) | suits (men's costume) | hats | dresses | genre subject | view | art | women | people | men | interior
Associated Places:
Europe | England | United Kingdom | London | City of London | Royal Academy
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
The Great Spectacle: 250 Years of the Summer Exhibition (Royal Academy of Arts, 2018-06-11 - 2018-08-19)Seeing Double : Portraits, Copies and Exhibitions in 1820s London (Yale Center for British Art, 2010-06-24 - 2010-09-19)Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (The State Hermitage Museum, 2007-10-23 - 2008-01-13)Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2007-07-11 - 2007-09-30)James Gillray and the Art of Caricature (Tate Britain, 2001-07-07 - 2001-09-02)Rowlandson Drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection (Yale Center for British Art, 1977-11-16 - 1978-01-15)Rowlandson Drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection (Royal Academy of Arts, 1978-03-04 - 1978-05-28)
Publications:
Richard T. Godfrey, James Gillray, The art of caricature , Tate Publishing, London, 2001, p. 89, no. 52, NJ18 G3845 G63 2001 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Mark Hallett, The Great Spectacle: 250 years of the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, [London], 2018, p. 24, no. 5, N5054 .H35 2018 (LC) Oversize (YCBA)Christine Riding, Turner & the sea, Thames & Hudson, London, 2013, p. 164, fig. 34, NJ18.T85 R52 2013 OVERSIZE (YCBA)John Riely, Rowlandson drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1977, p. 13, no. 10, NJ18 .R79 R68 (LC) (YCBA)Royal Academy of Arts, The Girtin collection : watercolours by Thomas Girtin and other masters : Royal Academy of Arts Diploma Gallery, London, 1962, p. 18, no. 102, ND1928 .G57 1962 (LC) (YCBA)Yale Center for British Art, Great British watercolors : from the Paul Mellon Collection, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2007, pp. 64-65, no. 27, ND1928 .Y35 2007 (LC)+ Oversize (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
From 1769 the Royal Academy in London mounted annual public exhibitions of contemporary art. Rowlandson himself was a regular exhibitor until 1787. Here he satirizes the popular idea that looking at art was a civilizing experience. Among the cast of comic characters, a central figure carries a connoisseur’s eyeglasses, but his large stomach betrays a gluttonous appetite. Similarly, the pair on the right bend in the most undignified of postures to get closer to the paintings, in the man’s case to get a more intimate view of a voluptuous female nude. Gallery label for Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)