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Lot Essay
The present drawing was executed when Rowlandson was at the height of his powers. Rowlandson has combined his rococo pen-lines with his accute observational skills. Executed in the same year as A Gaming Table at Devonshire House, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, it is also strongly reminiscent of the celebrated Box-Lobby Loungers, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1785 and sold in these Rooms as part of the Dent collection 10 July 1984, lot 16.
The theatre and the fashionable theatre crowd were favourite subjects of Rowlandson's providing a foil for his satirical sense of humour. In 1786 he executed Covent Garden Theatre and in the January of 1791 he executed a series of three works The Prospect before us, nos. 1 and 2 and Chaos is Come Again depicting 'the possible future condition of the foreign artists located within our shores, the performers at the Italian Opera'.
Rowlandson has captured the hustle and bustle of the interval; old men ogle young women, young women demurely fan themselves, young dandys slouch against the wall, and a young woman is carried out, overcome by the excitement. It also seems that as in The Box Lobby Loungers Rowlandson has depicted Colonel George Hangar with his favourite club 'Supple Jack' (the second standing figure from the left).
The Surrender of Calais by George Colman was first performed at the Haymarket on 30 July 1791. Its central story is taken from an old tale by Jean Le Bel in Vrayes Chroniques, in which six citizens of Calais, in response to an offer from King Edward, volunteer to sacrifice themselves so that their fellow townspeople might be spared. Its enormous popularity was reflected in the fact that The Surrender of Calais played no fewer than 28 nights that season alone, and the critics celebrated Colman's genius.
The theatre and the fashionable theatre crowd were favourite subjects of Rowlandson's providing a foil for his satirical sense of humour. In 1786 he executed Covent Garden Theatre and in the January of 1791 he executed a series of three works The Prospect before us, nos. 1 and 2 and Chaos is Come Again depicting 'the possible future condition of the foreign artists located within our shores, the performers at the Italian Opera'.
Rowlandson has captured the hustle and bustle of the interval; old men ogle young women, young women demurely fan themselves, young dandys slouch against the wall, and a young woman is carried out, overcome by the excitement. It also seems that as in The Box Lobby Loungers Rowlandson has depicted Colonel George Hangar with his favourite club 'Supple Jack' (the second standing figure from the left).
The Surrender of Calais by George Colman was first performed at the Haymarket on 30 July 1791. Its central story is taken from an old tale by Jean Le Bel in Vrayes Chroniques, in which six citizens of Calais, in response to an offer from King Edward, volunteer to sacrifice themselves so that their fellow townspeople might be spared. Its enormous popularity was reflected in the fact that The Surrender of Calais played no fewer than 28 nights that season alone, and the critics celebrated Colman's genius.