No. 230. Opera Beauties.
If these prints are correctly ascribed to Rowlandson, we see him here fairly entered in the lists of political caricature, and siding with Fox and the Whig party. He displays the same boldness in attacking the king and his ministers which was displayed by Gillray—a boldness that probably did much towards preserving the liberties of the country from what was no doubt a resolute attempt to trample upon them, at a time when caricature formed a very powerful weapon. Before this time, however, Rowlandson’s pencil had become practised in those burlesque pictures of social life for which he became afterwards so celebrated. At first he seems to have published his designs under fictitious names, and one now before me, entitled “The Tythe Pig,” bears the early date of 1786, with the name of “Wigstead,” no doubt an assumed one, which is found on some others of his early prints. It represents the country parson, in his own parlour, receiving the tribute of the tithe pig from an interesting looking farmer’s wife. The name of Rowlandson, with the date 1792, is attached to a very clever and humorous etching which is now also before me, entitled “Cold Broth and Calamity,” and representing a party of skaters, who have fallen in a heap upon the ice, which is breaking under their weight. It bears the name of Fores as publisher. From this time, and especially toward the close of the century, Rowlandson’s caricatures on social life became very numerous, and they are so well known that it becomes unnecessary, nor indeed would it be easy, to select a few examples which would illustrate all his characteristic excellencies. In prints published by Fores at the beginning of 1794, the address of the publisher is followed by the words, “where may be had all Rowlandson’s works,” which shows how great was his reputation as a caricaturist at that time. It may be stated briefly that he was distinguished by a remarkable versatility of talent, by a great fecundity of imagination, and by a skill in grouping quite equal to that of Gillray, and with a singular ease in forming his groups of a great number of figures. Among those of his contemporaries who spoke of him with the highest praise were sir Joshua Reynolds and Benjamin West. It has been remarked, too, that no artist ever possessed the power of Rowlandson of expressing so much with so little effort. We trace a great difference in style between Rowlandson’s earlier and his later works; although there is a general identity of character which cannot be mistaken. The figures in the former show a taste for grace and elegance that is rare in his later works, and we find a delicacy of beauty in his females which he appears afterwards to have entirely laid aside. An example of his earlier style in depicting female faces is furnished by the pretty farmer’s wife, in the print of “The Tythe Pig,” just alluded to; and I may quote as another example, an etching published on the 1st of January, 1794, under the title of “English Curiosity; or, the foreigner stared out of countenance.” An individual, in a foreign costume, is seated in the front row of the boxes of a theatre, probably intended for the opera, where he has become the object of curiosity of the whole audience, and all eyes are eagerly directed upon him. The faces of the men are rather coarsely grotesque, but those of the ladies, two of which are given in our cut No. 230, possess a considerable degree of refinement. He appears, however, to have been naturally a man of no real refinement, who easily gave himself up to low and vulgar tastes, and, as his caricature became more exaggerated and coarse, his females became less and less graceful, until his model of female beauty appears to have been represented by something like a fat oyster-woman. Our cut No. 231, taken from a print in the possession of Mr. Fairholt, entitled, “The Trumpet and Bassoon,” presents a good example of Rowlandson’s broad humour, and of his favourite models of the human face. We can almost fancy we hear the different tones of this brace of snorers.
No. 231. The Trumpet and Bassoon.
A good example of Rowlandson’s grotesques of the human figure is given in our cut No. 232, taken from a print published on the 1st of January, 1796, under the title of “Anything will do for an Officer.” People complained of the mean appearance of the officers in our armies, who obtained their rank, it was pretended, by favour and purchase rather than by merit; and this caricature is explained by an inscription beneath, which informs us how “Some school-boys, who were playing at soldiers, found one of their number so ill-made, and so much under size, that he would have disfigured the whole body if put into the ranks. ‘What shall we do with him?’ asked one. ‘Do with him?’ says another, ‘why make an officer of him.’” This plate is inscribed with his name, “Rowlandson fecit.”
No. 232. A Model Officer.
No. 233. Antiquaries at Work.