#thomas rowlandson

[weirdlookindog]

Thomas Rowlandson - The English Dance of Death, 1815

[bizarreauhavre]

Thomas Rowlandson - The english dance of death, 1815.

[artschoolglasses]

Herd of Deer under an Oak Tree, Thomas Rowlandson, 1775-1827

[oldsardens]

Thomas Rowlandson - Two Maids and a Man

[clove-pinks]

A small Christmas miracle: I actually found a War of 1812-era Christmas celebration reference! The Petersburg Volunteers of Virginia were treated to a Christmas Eve dinner at a hotel, sponsored by the Ohio legislature in Chillicothe, then the state capital. (The Petersburg Volunteers, 1812-1813, by Lee A. Wallace, Jr.)

I'm sure that the Christmas timing was more of a coincidence. People from the early 19th century really don't make any fuss about Christmas, usually. Although... Thomas Rowlandson's Christmas Gambols also dates from 1812 (Met Museum):

American Puritanism notwithstanding, did the Petersburg Volunteers have a fun and flirtatious time at their special dinner? (I hope so).

[mysterious-secret-garden]

Thomas Rowlandson - Death and the Debauchee.

[quotergirl19]

How I picture Polin in Violet’s drawing room after they’re betrothed & Eloise closes the door to give them a moment alone…

[aureate-memories]

A woman diving off a bathing wagon in to the sea by Thomas Rowlandson

[museoillogique]

Thomas Rowlandson - Exhibition "Stare" Case, 1811

Metropolitan Museum of Art

[malenudepaintings]

Serpent Attacking a Naked Man, 1799, Thomas Rowlandson

[outofeverythingthisnamewasleft]

[naked-atelier]

Thomas Rowlandson

[artschoolglasses]

Rural Halt, Rustic Sketch, and Haymakers, Thomas Rowlandson, 1787

[oldsardens]

Thomas Rowlandson - The Fruit Shop (Bailey Fruitery)

[clove-pinks]

James Gillray, The bow of a three-decker; part of a ship with figure-head at left. Pen and grey ink, with grey and pale buff wash, made 1772-1794 (British Museum).

Adam Smith had a lot of interesting things to say about sailors in The Wealth of Nations (1776):

The lottery of the sea is not altogether so disadvantageous as that of the army. The son of a creditable laborer or artificer may frequently go to sea with his father's consent; but if he enlists as a soldier, it is always without it.

But he dates himself with statements like: "The great admiral is less the object of public admiration than the great general; and the highest success in the sea service promises a less brilliant fortune and reputation than equal success in the land." (Obviously this is before the Royal Navy was respectable enough to have a king's son as a midshipman, and other aristocracy who crowded its ranks post-Battle of Trafalgar).

After a mention of sea captains being less in "common estimation" than army colonels, this passage about sailors rings true for the early 19th century:

Common sailors, therefore, more frequently get some fortune and preferment than common soldiers; and the hope of those prizes is what principally recommends the trade. Though their skill and dexterity are much superior to that of almost any artificers, and though their whole life is one continual scene of hardship and danger, yet for all this dexterity and skill, for all those hardships and dangers, while they remain in the condition of common sailors, they receive scarce any other recompense but the pleasure of exercising the one and of surmounting the other. Their wages are not greater than those of common laborers at the port which regulates the rate of seamen's wages.

Thomas Rowlandson, Ships and Sailors (late 18th century-early 19th century), The Met.

[byneddiedingo]

magictransistor

Thomas Rowlandson’s caricature of comet-viewing in 1811.