Grotesque Borders for Rooms & Screens, Extravaganzas Plate 5
Medium
Hand-colored etching
Dimensions
Sheet (Trimmed): 14 15/16 × 19 7/16 in. (38 × 49.4 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
59.533.1259
Tags
Art Historical Context
This lively hand-colored etching from 1799, titled *Grotesque Borders for Rooms & Screens, Extravaganzas Plate 5*, captures the playful spirit of late Georgian satire. Created through a collaboration between caricaturist George Murgatroyd Woodward, the renowned Thomas Rowlandson, and publisher Rudolph Ackermann in London, the print was designed as a decorative border. Its exaggerated figures of men and women invite viewers to imagine it framing walls, screens, or furnishings in fashionable homes of the era. Hand-colored etchings like this one were immensely popular at the turn of the nineteen...