Dinners Drest in the Neatest Manner

Thomas Rowlandson|Thomas Tegg

October 1811 · Hand-colored etching; reprint · Drawings and Prints

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.

Artist

Thomas Rowlandson|Thomas Tegg

Date

October 1811

Medium

Hand-colored etching; reprint

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959