Fairlop Fair, Essex
Rowlandson here depicts a country road packed with wagons and pedestrians, the scene observed by cottagers at left. Three versions of the composition are known, one with a sign over the cottage door inscribed "Fairlop Fair, Essex." This annual event originated as a meal hosted each July by a London engineer, Daniel Day (1683–1767). The latter centered on a huge five hundred year old tree, the Fairlop oak, in Hainault Forest. Traders with stalls came to serve the crowd and, by the middle of the eighteenth century, the "fair" drew close to a hundred thousand. In June 1805, the oak caught fire and by 1820 it had blown down. In this drawing, Rowlandson represents the tree as a leafless silhouette standing at the center of a distant field.
Artwork Details
- Title: Fairlop Fair, Essex
- Artist: Thomas Rowlandson (British, London 1757–1827 London)
- Date: ca. 1816
- Medium: Pen and brown and gray inks, with watercolor
- Dimensions: Sheet: 8 5/16 x 14 3/16 in. (21.1 x 36 cm)
- Classification: Drawings
- Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1908
- Object Number: 08.227.17
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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Thomas Rowlandson (British, London 1757–1827 London)
1780–1827
Thomas Rowlandson (British, London 1757–1827 London)
1780–1827
Thomas Rowlandson (British, London 1757–1827 London)
1780–1827
Thomas Rowlandson (British, London 1757–1827 London)
January 1794
Thomas Rowlandson (British, London 1757–1827 London)
late 18th–early 19th century
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