Browse Items (74 total)

In The Enraged Son of Mars and Timid Tonsor, Rowlandson criticizes barber-surgeons who can barely offer a safe shave or haircut but claim to have enough skills to treat the sick and injured. The angry customer, a military officer who has removed his…

In A Going! A Going!, a physician, himself rosy-cheeked, well-fed, and hence well-paid, visits an sickly patient too ill to leave his bedroom. A list of prescriptions on the table and a collection of medications on the window sill indicate that an…

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…

During the 18th century the city of Bath became a fashionable tourist attraction by reputation of its spas. Fed by geothermal mineral springs, the hot sulfuric water at Bath was alleged to heal a variety of illnesses and infirmities. “Taking the…

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…

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”…

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…

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…

During the 18th and 19th centuries certain illnesses became markers of affluence and refinement. Consumption (tuberculosis), was associated with delicate femininity or Romantic sensibility. This print portrays a courting couple, destined for the…

As in Hogarth’s Reward of Cruelty, the physician in Giving up the Ghost or One Too Many is associated with corpses, skeletons, and death. While the sleeping doctor is oblivious to everything, his patient succumbs in spite of discarded medications…