The Wedding of Lismahago and Tabitha, an illustration from Tobias Smollett's "The Expedition of Humphry Clinker" (London, 1793), Vol. 1. 1793
April 6, 1793
Medium
Etching and engraving
Dimensions
Sheet: 4 1/2 × 6 3/8 in. (11.4 × 16.2 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
59.533.562(10)
Tags
Art Historical Context
This etching and engraving captures a lively scene from Tobias Smollett’s 1771 novel *The Expedition of Humphry Clinker*, specifically the wedding of the eccentric Scottish soldier Lieutenant Lismahago and the prim Welsh widow Tabitha Bramble. Created for a 1793 London edition, the print brings to life one of the book’s most humorous episodes, reflecting the era’s taste for illustrated fiction that made popular novels more accessible to a growing reading public. The work is attributed to a collaboration involving caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson, whose spirited line work often infused literary ...
About the Artist
James Sibbald|Thomas Rowlandson|Charles Grignion, I (British, Scottish|British) · 1747 |1757 –1803 |1827
British, Whitlaw, Roxburghshire, Scotland 1747–1803 Edinburgh|British, London 1757–1827 London