Miseries of London: Going Out to Dinner
February 1, 1807
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Sheet:: 11 1/8 × 15 1/4 in. (28.2 × 38.7 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1956
Accession Number
56.567.14
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the chaotic streets of early 19th-century London with Thomas Rowlandson's etching *Miseries of London: Going to Dinner* (February 1, 1807), by Rudolph Ackermann. This lively satire captures the pandemonium of urban nightlife: jostling crowds of men and women in fine attire, yapping dogs underfoot, and clattering carriages vying for space. Rowlandson, a master caricaturist of the Regency era, exaggerates the scene's frenzy to poke fun at the "miseries" of polite society—where a simple dinner outing devolves into a comedic tangle of elbows, spills, and near-collisions. Part of Ackerma...
About the Artist
Thomas Rowlandson|Rudolph Ackermann, London · 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...