Browse Items (69 total)

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…

A Visit to the Doctor describes an appointment with a physician who could have belonged to Hogarth’s Company of Undertakers. He lives the lifestyle of a nobleman and receives patients in a well-appointed study attended by a footman. The bust of…

The popular theme of the quack physician became a staple for playwrights such the English playwright Edward Ravenscroft (ca. 1654-1707). Today this author of the Restoration period (1660-1710) is relatively unknown, but his farce The Anatomist or The…

Doctor Drainbarrel, “conveyed home in order to take his trial for neglect of family duty,” depicts an inebriated doctor unwillfully collected from a country ale house. Pushed in a wheel barrel by a servant with a roving eye, he is followed by his…

Attesting to the popularity of Edward Ravenscroft’s The Anatomist is the eponymous print by Thomas Rowlandson, whose friend John Bannister (1760-1836) performed in the role of Crispin at Drury Lane. The print depicts a scene with Dr. Sawbones, his…

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”…

In contrast to the opposite work about audience, this print illustrates attendance at non-patent or “illegitimate” theatres, one in London and one in the countryside. Non-patented theatres in England were theoretically illegal, so they usually…

The English Short Title Catalogue lists six editions of Ravenscroft’s The Anatomist published between 1697 and 1763. The popularity of the play in the 18th century reflects the taste for bawdy comedy at the court of Charles II (1630-1685), first…

French theatre had a direct influence on English drama during the English Interregnum (1649-1660), when the theatres in England were closed by the Puritans and much of the English aristocracy lived in exile in France. Ravenscroft’s hilarious farce…

The cast list from this 1807 edition of Ravenscroft’s The Anatomist includes Thomas Rowlandson’s close friend John Bannister (1760-1836). Known especially for his comedic talents, Bannister trained with the great David Garrick (1717-1779), owner and…