In The Company of Undertakers, Hogarth parodies the theme of medicine as a “noble” profession by creating a phony coat of arms emblazoned with the heads of physicians, all holding to their noses an attribute of their profession, a cane filled at the…
In the engraving entitled The Reward of Cruelty, the English artist William Hogarth (1697-1764), demonstrates the popular view of 18th century- medicine as a ghoulish occupation involving skeletons, cauldrons of boiling bones, and buckets of…
In The English Dance of Death Rowlandson applies his morbid sense of humor to a narrative poem by William Combe. The Quack Doctor depicts a busy apothecary mixing medicine for a line of anxious patients, while a man with gout, perhaps a regular…
The Tour of Doctor Syntax follows a fictional schoolmaster’s adventures in search of the “picturesque.” A retired schoolmaster, Doctor Syntax stumbles upon outlandish situations and finds himself in humorous predicaments. Rowlandsons’s Doctor Syntax…
First published in 1771, this epistolary novel by Thomas Smollett (1721-1771), MD, follows the travels of the household of Matthew Bramble, who suffering from gout, spends time taking the waters at Bath. Writing to his physician Dr. Lewis, Bramble…
In Macassar Oil, an apothecary vendor pours oil on a bald man’s head, while a woman behind them looks shocked at the reflection of her hair standing on end. A sign on the rear wall advertises a miracle product: “Macassar Oil, for the Growth of Hair,…
Rowlandson’s depiction of a working anatomy laboratory reflects the popular view of physicians as ghoulish and disrespectful of death. The doctor and his busy staff are conducting at least two dissections, one in the foreground and one in the…
In 1778 Rowlandson produced a series of prints, The Comforts of Bath, about this popular English spa resort. Displayed here is a preliminary drawing for one of these prints, entitled The Pump Room, depicting a social center at the spa where the water…
In this print and the one opposite, Rowlandson illustrates two different types of playhouses and their audiences in English theatre during his time. This print portrays the attendance of two different productions at the same “patent” or “legitimate”…