Quadrille–Evening Fashions– Dedicated to the Heads of the Nation: La Poule

Thomas McLean|William Heath ('Paul Pry')

1827 · Hand-colored etching · Drawings and Prints

Heath presents two fashionably dressed couples with exaggerated hairstyles facing one another on the dance floor. The men have high curls and large sideburns; one wears a green, gold-braided Hussar's jacket over baggy red trousers; the other a green frockcoat with tight pantaloons. Their female partners are resplendant in tight-waisted gowns–one yellow, one pink–with small puffed sleeves and flaring skirts short enought to reveal shapely ankles and small slippered feet. Like many Heath prints from this period, this is signed with a small top-hatted dandy holding an umbrella–Paul Pry, a nosy character from a play by John Poole, the latter perhaps punningly referenced by the name of the dance shown, "La Poule" (The Hen).

Artist

Thomas McLean|William Heath ('Paul Pry')

Date

1827

Medium

Hand-colored etching

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Jill Spalding, 2022