The Gig Shop or Kicking Up a Breeze at Nell Hammiltons Hop

Thomas Tegg|Thomas Rowlandson

February 16, 1811 · Hand-colored etching · Drawings and Prints

Rowlandson's early cataloguer Joseph Grego describes this impromptu boxing match in "a place of 'fast' resort, [where] dancing has given way to much rougher diversions...[with] the place appropriated for the dance...given up to a "mill" conducted on strikingly professional principles. One of the combatants has "peeled" in recognized style, and his opponent has stripped to his shirt; the backers and seconders of the fisticuffing bucks...are members of the fair sex...A ring of delighted spectators are enjoying the fight and the fun from the benches, while other gentlemen are prudently engaged in restraining their fair partners from getting mixed up in the squabble." The term gig in the title refers to something that whirls–first dancers, now boxers–and Nell Hammilton may be Elizabeth, Duchess of Hamilton wife of the 8th Duke who had been a well-known boxing enthusiast. Their divorce in 1794 ended a marriage marred by affairs on both sides, so notorious that a country dance of the period was named "Hamilton House" because it contained so many changes of partner.

Artist

Thomas Tegg|Thomas Rowlandson

Date

February 16, 1811

Medium

Hand-colored etching

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959