School for Modern Greeks
Etcher Thomas Rowlandson British
After James Brydges Willyams British
Publisher Thomas Rowlandson British
Not on view
In this seventh print of a group of eight, a young man raises a dice cup and prepares to throw. The title makes it clear that his success relies on cheating or "greeking," the accusatory gesture of the older man across the table a sign that he has been discovered. A coachman gnawing his whip at left seems ready to wreak revenge. 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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