Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 15

Thomas Rowlandson
A Cart Race

1788

$4,000
£3,077.07
€3,571.60
CA$5,640.95
A$6,318.82
CHF 3,318.87
MX$76,834.80
NOK 42,027.75
SEK 39,895.64
DKK 26,656.23

About the Item

A Cart Race Hand colored etching & aquatint, 1788 Signed in the plate (see photo) Published by William Hollande, London Inscribed in the plate with title, artist's name and publication line 'Rowlandson. 1788./ London. Pubd 1789 by Wm Holland No 50. Oxford Street.' Reference: M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VI, 1938) British Museum Satires 7607 Grego, 'Rowlandson', i. 260, Grego II.392 Provenance: Chris Beetles Ltd., London (label), 2003 Jeffrey M. Kaplan, Washington, D.C. (label) Fursten zu Oettingen-Wallerstein, Lugt 2715a, verso (see photo) Condition: Excellent Printed on 18th century laid paper Archival framing by Chris Beetles Ltd., London Note: The British Museum has two impressions, one trimmed the other full sheet as this example. Accession Number: 1868,0711.35 The Metropolitan Museum has an impression: Accession number 59.533.314 Fitzwilliam Museum: Accession number: 34.14-286 Cleveland Museum of Art accession number: 1958.10 Image description per BM: Three ramshackle two-wheeled carts drawn by wretched horses race (right to left) against a background formed by the church... Note: The British Museum has two impressions, one trimmed the other full sheet as this example. Accession Number: 1868,0711.35 The Metropolitan Museum has an impression: Accession number 59.533.314 Fitzwilliam Museum: Accession number: 34.14-286 Cleveland Museum of Art accession number: 1958.10 Image description per BM: Three ramshackle two-wheeled carts drawn by wretched horses race (right to left) against a background formed by the clouds of dust which they have raised, with a row of gabled houses (right) inscribed 'St Giles', terminating in a church spire (left), and probably representing Broad St. Giles. The occupants of the carts are Irish costermongers typical of St. Giles. The foremost horse gallops, urged on by the shouts of a standing man brandishing a club. The other occupants, two women and a man, cheer derisively the next cart, whose horse has fallen, one woman falling from it head-first, another lies on the ground. The driver lashes the horse furiously. The third cart, of heavier construction, is starting. The horses are partly obscured by the clouds of dust, but denizens watch from casement windows and a door. Two ragged urchins (right) cheer the race; a dog barks. "It was said that the amount of copper Thomas Rowlandson etched would sheathe the British Navy. An inveterate gambler, for much of his life Rowlandson had to produce a flood of his comic prints to stay ahead of financial losses.A wealthy uncle and aunt raised Rowlandson after his textile-merchant father went bankrupt. His career developed quickly. He entered London's Royal Academy Schools in 1772, visited Paris in 1774, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1775, and won a silver medal in 1777. He left school in 1778 to set up in business. Rowlandson's depictions of life in Georgian England exposed human foibles and vanity with sympathy and rollicking humor. During the 1780s he consolidated the delicate style he used for his coarse subjects. He worked mainly in ink and watercolor, his rhythmic compositions, flowing line, and relaxed elegance inspired by French Rococo art. In 1789, at the height of critical and popular success, Rowlandson's aunt died, leaving him a large sum. He ran through the money quickly, traveling across Europe and gambling: by 1793 he was impoverished. His fortunes changed in 1797, when he began working for fine-art publisher Rudolph Ackermann, who published most of Rowlandson's finest work for twenty years." Courtesy J. Paul Getty Museum
  • Creator:
    Thomas Rowlandson (1756 - 1827, British)
  • Creation Year:
    1788
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 13.75 in (34.93 cm)Width: 18.38 in (46.69 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
    1780-1789
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Fairlawn, OH
  • Reference Number:
    Seller: FA109401stDibs: LU14015204102

More From This Seller

View All
Recruits on a March
By Thomas Rowlandson
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Recruits on a March Ink and watercolor on paper, mounted on support Unsigned Condition: watercolor sheet laid down on paper, moderately faded Original Ackermann frame and matting Ima...
Category

Early 1800s Romantic Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Passage du Mont Saint-Bernard
By Jean Louis Andre Theodore Gericault
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Theodore Gericault (1791-1824) Passage du Mont Saint-Bernard Lithograph, 1822 Signed and titled in the stone As published in Arnault "Vie politique et militaire de Napoleon" Conditio...
Category

1820s Romantic Figurative Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Family Group
By George Morland
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Family Group Drawing in Chinese white, sepia and bistre ink, c. 1790 Signed lower left: G. Morland (see photo) The present work appears to be a preliminary study for two Morland paintings where the artist uses portions of this preliminary study in finished exhibition paintings. The strongest association is with the painting entitled The Cottage Door (1790), now in the collection of Royal Holloway College, University of London. Morland uses the same small girl (on left side of this sheet) holding a doll on a chair in the exact same pose. The second painting entitled The Tea Garden (Tate Gallery, London, c. 1790) incorporates similar poses and gestures of the three other figure studies on this sheet. Provenance: Colnaghi, London (Stock # D25924, see photo) Maynard Walker Gallery, New York ( see photo of label) Davis Galleries, New York, their Eagle stamp and stock number (see photo) Ms. Gloria Kaplan (1930-2011) New York City Regarding Maynard Walker: Maynard Walker New York Times obit: "Maynard Walker, an art dealer in New York City for nearly 40 years who was among the first to show the works of leading American regionalist painters, died of pneumonia Tuesday at St. Joseph's Hospital in Carbondale, Pa. He was 89 years old and lived in Lake Ariel, Pa. In 1933, while working at the Ferargil Gallery in New York, Mr. Walker organized an exhibition for the Kansas City Art Institute that for the first time brought together the work of the regionalist painters Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton and John Steuart Curry. After Mr. Walker opened his own gallery, at 108 East 57th Street, in 1935, these artists joined him and showed regularly there. The gallery was also among the first to show the work of George Grosz, the German painter and caricaturist, who moved to the United States in 1932. The gallery moved to 117 East 57th Street after the war." Condition: Aging to paper Slight fading to ink Tiny spotting in image All consistent with the age of the drawing Image size: 6 3/8 x 9 1/2 inches Frame size: 14 1/4 x 17 1/4 inches George Morland was born in London on 26 June 1763. He was the son of Henry Robert Morland, and grandson of George Henry Morland, said by Cunningham to have been lineally descended from Sir Samuel Morland, while other biographers go so far as to say that he had only to claim the baronetcy in order to get it. Morland began to draw at the age of three years, and at the age of ten (1773) his name appears as an honorary exhibitor of sketches at the Royal Academy. He continued to exhibit at the Free Society in 1775 and 1776, and at the Society of Artists in 1777, and then again at the Royal Academy in 1778, 1779 and 1780. His talents were carefully cultivated by his father, who was accused of stimulating them unduly with a view to his own profit, shutting the child up in a garret to make drawings from pictures and casts for which he found a ready sale. The boy, on the other hand, is said to have soon found a way to make money for himself by hiding some of his drawings, and lowering them at nightfall out of his window to young accomplices, with whom he used to spend the proceeds in frolic and self-indulgence. It has been also asserted that his father, discovering this trick, tried to conciliate him by indulgence, humouring his whims and encouraging his low tastes. He was set by his father to copy pictures of all kinds, but especially of the Dutch and Flemish masters. Among others he copied Fuseli's Nightmare and Reynolds's Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy. He was also introduced to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and obtained permission to copy his pictures, and all accounts agree that before he was seventeen he had obtained considerable reputation not only with his friends and the dealers, but among artists of repute. A convincing proof of the skill in original composition which he had then attained is the fine engraving. It is said that before his apprenticeship to his father came to an end, in 1784, Romney offered to take him into his own house, with a salary of £300, on condition of his signing articles for three years. But Morland, we are told, had had enough of restraint, and after a rupture with his father he set up on his own account in 1784 or 1785 at the house of a picture dealer, and commenced that life which, in its combination of hard work and hard drinking, is almost without a parallel. Morland soon became the mere slave of the dealer with whom he lived. His boon companions were "ostlers, potboys, horse jockeys, moneylenders, pawnbrokers, punks, and pugilists." In this company the handsome young artist swaggered, dressed in a green coat, with large yellow buttons, leather breeches, and top boots. "He was in the very extreme of foppish puppeyism", says Hassell; "his head, when ornamented according to his own taste, resembled a snowball, after the model of Tippey Bob, of dramatic memory, to which was attached a short, thick tail, not unlike a painter's brush." His youth and strong constitution enabled him to recover rapidly from his excesses, and he not only employed the intervals in painting, but at this time, or shortly afterwards, taught himself to play the violin. He made also an effort, and a successful one, to free himself from his task-master, and escaped to Margate, where he painted miniatures for a while. In 1785 he paid a short visit to France, whither his fame had preceded him, and where he had no lack of commissions. Returning to London, he lodged in a house at Kensal Green, on the road to Harrow, near William Ward, intercourse with whose family seems for a time to have had a steadying influence. It resulted in his marriage with Miss Anne Ward...
Category

1790s English School Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink

A Jersey Vraic Cart
By Edmund Blampied
Located in Fairlawn, OH
A Jersey Vraic Cart Etching, 1939 Signed lower center margin (see photo) Signed and dated in the plate (see photo) Edition 250 plus 10 on J. Whatman laid paper Printed by David Stran...
Category

1930s English School Animal Prints

Materials

Etching

Un plaideur auquel manquent malheureusement
By Honoré Daumier
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Un plaideur auquel manquent malheureusement les pieces les plus importantes, les pieces de cent sous. (A litigant who unfortunately doesn't have the most important details to success..dollars and cents) Series: Croquis par Daumier, No. 1 As published in Le Charivari, Paris, October 20, 1865. Croquis (Sketches by Daumier) is a series of 4 prints...
Category

1860s Romantic Prints and Multiples

Materials

Lithograph

Napoleon a Bautzen
By Hippolyte Bellangé
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Napoleon a Bautzen Lithograph, 1822 Signed in the stone (see photo) From: Arnault, A. V. Vie Politique et Militaire de Napoleon (120 plates) Published, Paris, Librairie Historiquem 1...
Category

1820s Romantic Figurative Prints

Materials

Lithograph

You May Also Like

Of Four in Hand He Joins the Vulgar Rage - Etching by Thomas Rowlandson - 1817
By Thomas Rowlandson
Located in Roma, IT
Etching and aquatint realized by Thomas Rowlandson in 1817. Plate from "The Dance of Life" by William Combe. Very good condition. Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827) was an english artis...
Category

Mid-19th Century Modern Figurative Prints

Materials

Etching

Tis hop'd, Miss Foreign Scenes - Etching by Thomas Rowlandson - 1817
By Thomas Rowlandson
Located in Roma, IT
Etching and aquatint realized by Thomas Rowlandson in 1817. Plate from "The Dance of Life" by William Combe. Very good condition. Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827) was an english artis...
Category

Mid-19th Century Modern Figurative Prints

Materials

Etching

He Pays his Lively Court - Etching by Thomas Rowlandson - 1817
By Thomas Rowlandson
Located in Roma, IT
Etching and aquatint realized by Thomas Rowlandson in 1817. Plate from "The Dance of Life" by William Combe. Very good condition. Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827) was an english artis...
Category

Mid-19th Century Modern Figurative Prints

Materials

Etching

The Widow'd Mother Hastens Forth to Meet - Etching by Thomas Rowlandson - 1817
By Thomas Rowlandson
Located in Roma, IT
Etching and aquatint realized by Thomas Rowlandson in 1817. Plate from "The Dance of Life" by William Combe. Very good condition. Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827) was an english artis...
Category

Mid-19th Century Modern Figurative Prints

Materials

Etching

Tp Part with Thee, my Boy - Etching by Thomas Rowlandson - 1817
By Thomas Rowlandson
Located in Roma, IT
Etching and aquatint realized by Thomas Rowlandson in 1817. Plate from "The Dance of Life" by William Combe. Very good condition. Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827) was an english artis...
Category

Mid-19th Century Modern Figurative Prints

Materials

Etching

For my Own Good and Yours' I'm Bent- Etching by Thomas Rowlandson - 1817
By Thomas Rowlandson
Located in Roma, IT
Etching and aquatint realized by Thomas Rowlandson in 1817. Plate from "The Dance of Life" by William Combe. Very good condition. Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827) was an english artis...
Category

Mid-19th Century Modern Figurative Prints

Materials

Etching