Rum Characters in a Shrubbery
November 1, 1808
Medium
Hand-colored etching and aquatint
Dimensions
Sheet: 13 3/16 × 9 3/4 in. (33.5 × 24.7 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959
Accession Number
59.533.1196
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
Art Historical Context
Created in November 1808 by British caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson with aquatint work by Richard Reeve, *Rum Characters in a Shrubbery* offers a lively glimpse into early nineteenth-century social satire. The hand-colored etching and aquatint captures a playful outdoor scene filled with men, women, and dogs engaged in drinking, highlighting the eccentric and sometimes absurd behaviors of the period’s leisure classes. Rowlandson’s distinctive style—marked by fluid lines and exaggerated expressions—turns everyday social interactions into witty commentary. The medium itself was ideally suited to...
About the Artist
Thomas Rowlandson|Richard Reeve · 1756–1827
Thomas Rowlandson (1757–1827) was an English artist and caricaturist whose satirical watercolors and prints captured the social life of Georgian Britain with unparalleled wit and technical mastery. Alongside James Gillray, he is recognized as one of the greatest British graphic artists, and his distinctive flowing line and keen observations have made his work integral to understanding late 18th an...