Dinners Drest in the Neatest Manner
Thomas Rowlandson British
Publisher Thomas Tegg British
Not on view
Rowlandson addresses the dilemma faced by all who dine out–the mystery of what takes place behind a closed kitchen door. The title restates the hollow promise made to patrons of an inn, whose kitchen we see in operation. Instead of clean food neatly prepared, a grotesque one-eyed cook rolls out a meat pie while bedewing the dish with rheum dripping from his nose and mouth, the stream stimulated by snuff held in a small round box. The slovenly standards of the kitchen extend to a maid with an exposed breast who reaches for a dish and fails to notice rats escaping from it. While Rowlandson trained at the Royal Academy and could produce sophisticated Rococo compositions, he was also a master of ribaldry. Most of his prints in this vein were issued by Thomas Tegg, a London print publisher, who sold the present example for a shilling.
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