Going to the Races
Possibly by William Heath ('Paul Pry') British
Publisher Thomas Tegg British
Not on view
A dandy drives a four wheeled gig on high springs, seated next to a fashionable woman who wears an enormous bonnet. The gig is drawn by five jockies who rides velocipedes. Two liveried black grooms follow on similar mounts. Heath devoted a series of satires to velocipedes--foot-propelled bikes popularly known as hobbies--in response to a craze that swept fashionable London in 1819. That year Denis Johnson promoted a British model that he based on an 1817 design developed in Baden by Baron Karl von Drais (called a Laufmachine (running machine) or Draisine). The craze soon subsided as accidents mounted, and high fines were issued to those who rode on sidewalks.
