Rowlandson's Characteristic Sketches of the Lower Orders, Intended as a Companion to the New Picture of London: Consisting of Fifty-Four Plates, Neatly Coloured

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A harder-to-find Rowlandson title that with its small plates vividly brings back the liveliness of the London street of its day. 12mo. 14 cm, or 5.5 inches, tall. Very much in the tradition of Hogarth, and pre-figuring Mayhew's "London Labour and London Poor", except this is virtually entirely visual. Here we find peddlers of every stripe (dog meats, artwork, doormats, earthenware, roasting jacks, matches, etc.), con-men, musicians. The backdrops are often stately Georgian structures, and there is a gentleness and joyfulness to some of the depictions that marks a small departure from the acerbity of some caricatures of the day and even some of Rowlandson's own work. While the faces are decisively un-realistic, there is a sense of movement in many of the images that is real, and one does get a sense of how things really must have been from this collection of plates. Full blue morocco, with gilt turn ins. Joints rubbed. A few captions have faintly inked one word alternative words below. Seller Inventory # 002898

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