Thomas Rowlandson

(1756 or 1757 - April 1827)

One of the great British caricaturists and satirists, Rowlandson was a skilled draughtsman and engraver. As a child, he is said to have learned to draw before he could write. After attending Eton and the Royal Academy, he spent two years studying drawing in Paris. Rowlandson is known for his amusing illustrations of life and politics during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Dr. Syntax in the Wrong Lodging House
Handcolored Aquatint Etching circa 1810

Dr. Syntax arrives at a woman's lodging house (or is it perhaps a brothel?) and is firmly shown to the door. Two residents watch through a peephole in the door.

Dr. Syntax was the product of a collaboration between Thomas Rowlandson, one of most famous caricaturists of the Georgian period (under King George III and William Coombe who wrote up Dr. Syntax's adventures as a series of long poems. This is the period that corresponds to the Regency period in France.

The Tour of Dr. Sytnax in Search of the Picturesque was first published in 1809 in the Poetical Magazine and began appearing as a separate book in 1812. In the stories, Dr. Syntax, a white whigged curate and schoolmaster, leaves home on a series of adventures. He sets off on an old mare and runs into all sorts of trouble. Some consider this series a precursor of the modern comic strip.

Dimensions: 9.25 X 5.8 inches

Condition: Very good. Two small pinholes in margin.

Annotations: Lower Left, "Drawn and Etched by Rowlandson"