Watercolor, pen and black ink, gray ink, and graphite on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream laid paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 11 5/16 x 17 1/2 inches (28.7 x 44.5 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Inscribed in pen and gray ink, center right: "LION DARGEANT | ICI ON DONNE BONNE | A MANGER PAR | S. MAIGRE [?] TRAITEUR"; center left: "POSTE ROYALE"; lower right: "DE PAR | LE ROY"; inscribed on mount in graphite, lower right: "French Travelling"; inscribed on verso in graphite, lower right: "No Ref"
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B2001.2.1134
Classification:
Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
wheels | gates | windows | trees | buildings | women | paper (fiber product) | writing (processes) | travel | men | parasol | curtains | crutches | carriages | genre subject | signs | reins | riding crops | horses (animals) | pigs | piglets
Associated Places:
Europe | France
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
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)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:
Mathew Thomas Payne, Regarding Thomas Rowlandson, 1757-1827, his life, art & acquaintance , Hogarth Arts, London, 2010, pp. 112, 113, fig. 47, NJ18 R79 P39 2010 (YCBA)John Riely, Rowlandson drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1977, pp. 30-31, no. 42, pl. VIII, NJ18 .R79 R68 (LC) (YCBA)Yale Center for British Art, Great British watercolors : from the Paul Mellon Collection, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2007, pp. 54-56, no. 21, ND1928 .Y35 2007 (LC)+ Oversize (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
Thomas Rowlandson was a regular visitor to France, and this watercolor of a postal coach departing from a country inn was no doubt inspired by one of his journeys. Despite his fascination with the French, Rowlandson appealed to the English taste for mocking their neighbors across the channel. In this drawing he plays on the stereotype of the French as miserably malnourished. The sign on the right promises good food supplied by “J. Maigre.” “Maigre” is French for “thin” and “soup maigre” was the notorious soup without meat. The two figures to the left who watch the coach rumble out of the yard do so with wry amusement. One of them, an artist, is surely Rowlandson himself; the other well-fed Englishman is probably his friend and traveling companion Henry Wigstead. 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)