After Dinner
October 22, 1789
Medium
Hand-colored etching and aquatint
Dimensions
Sheet (trimmed and inlaid): 8 1/16 × 9 13/16 in. (20.4 × 25 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959
Accession Number
59.533.2032
Tags
Art Historical Context
"After Dinner," a hand-colored etching and aquatint created on October 22, 1789, captures the lively social world of late eighteenth-century Britain through the lens of satire. Published by S. W. Fores and designed by the celebrated caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson, the print reflects the era’s fascination with everyday manners and class interactions. Rowlandson, a leading figure in Georgian caricature, often depicted scenes of domestic life with witty exaggeration, and this work is no exception. The medium itself—etching combined with aquatint and delicate hand-coloring—allowed artists to prod...