Italian Picture Dealers Humbugging My Lord Anglaise
May 30, 1812
Medium
Hand-colored etching
Dimensions
Sheet: 12 5/8 × 9 3/16 in. (32.1 × 23.4 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
59.533.1222
Tags
Art Historical Context
Thomas Rowlandson's *Italian Picture Dealers Humbugging My Anglaise* (1812) is a delightfully sharp satire from the golden age of British caricature. The hand-colored etching depicts sly Italian art dealers fleecing a gullible English aristocrat—lampooned as "My Lord Ang"—in a classic tale of cultural clash and commerce. Rowlandson, a master of Regency-era satire, skewers the pretensions of the wealthy elite with his trademark wit, exaggerating facial expressions and gestures for comic effect. Created during the Napoleonic Wars, when British Grand Tourists still flocked to Italy despite trave...
About the Artist
Thomas Rowlandson · 1756–1827
Thomas Rowlandson (1757–1827) was an English artist and caricaturist whose satirical watercolors and prints captured the social life of Georgian Britain with unparalleled wit and technical mastery. Alongside James Gillray, he is recognized as one of the greatest British graphic artists, and his distinctive flowing line and keen observations have made his work integral to understanding late 18th an...