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The Bum Shop

Attributed to R. Rushworth British
Publisher S. W. Fores British
July 11, 1785
Not on view
By the 1780s the London fashion for high hair had been replaced by an exaggerated female silhouette that featured an inflated bust and enlarged rump, both achieved with the help of props. In this print, fashionable women visit a “Bum Shop” to buy bustles and are shown trying on various models. A young woman by the door, who has achieved the desired effect, prepares to leave. The facetious text below, written by the proprietor “Derriere,” assures ladies “to whom Nature in a slovenly moment has been niggardly in her distribution of certain lovely Endowments” that he has become expert at “artfully supplying this necessary appendage of female excellence." A small poodle clipped to imitate the fashion underscores the satirical tone.
Other writers of the period describe fashionable ladies wearing a "fashionable circumvallation of tow and whalebone" and "protruberances on the hips called bustlers, another behind...called in plain language a rump, and a merry-thought of wire on the breast to puff out a handkerchief like a pouting pigeon."

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The Bum Shop
  • Artist: Attributed to R. Rushworth (British, active 1785–86)
  • Publisher: S. W. Fores (London)
  • Date: July 11, 1785
  • Medium: Etching
  • Dimensions: sheet: 12 11/16 x 17 3/4 in. (32.2 x 45.1 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959
  • Object Number: 59.533.93
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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The Bum Shop, R. Rushworth British, Hand-colored etching
The Bum Shop
R. Rushworth
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The Romp, R. Rushworth British, Hand-colored etching
The Romp
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January 3, 1786
Scrapbook of Drawings and Prints, Gideon Saint British, Pen and ink, engraving and etching
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Imaginary View of Venice, houses at left with figures on terraces, a domed church at center in the background, boats and boat-sheds below, and a seated man observing from a wall at right in the foreground, from "Views" (Vedute altre prese da i luoghi altre ideate da Antonio Canal), Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal) Italian, Etching; undivided plate, only state
Imaginary View of Venice, houses at left with figures on terraces, a domed church at center in the background, boats and boat-sheds below, and a seated man observing from a wall at right in the foreground, from "Views" (Vedute altre prese da i luoghi altre ideate da Antonio Canal)
Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal)
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