School for Gallantry
Etcher Thomas Rowlandson British
After James Brydges Willyams British
Publisher Thomas Rowlandson British
Not on view
In this fifth print of a group of eight, a blue-uniformed suitor discovers his lady-love sleeping in the arms of a red-coated rival. Scattered instruments and a monkey wearing the dozing officer's hat and holding his whip, indicate that frenzied dancing has taken place, while Rousseau's "Eloise" ("Julie, or the New Heloise") lying open on the floor points to illicit passion. Rowlandson etched this set after drawings by Willyams, a university-educated lieutenant-colonel from Cornwall who also supplied supporting satirical text under the pseudonym Joel McCringer. Rowlandson's characteristic elegance does not disguise the dark human impulses being satirized. Modern education, it is suggested, does little to teach self-control, wisdom or empathy.
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