Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The Old Harlot's Dream (NSFW)

by Stephen J. Gertz

ROWLANDSON, Thomas. The Old Harlot's Dream.
Original ink and watercolor wash drawing on paper.
22.8 x 35 cm.

The great British caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson (1756 - 1827) is known primarily for his biting social satire; he was attracted to the follies and foibles of behavior and the human comedy, taking  particular interest in skewering social conventions. High-born to low-born, nobody escaped his notice and subsequent pen and brush.

So it should come as no surprise that he also possessed a strong interest in the erotic aspects of human activity, a field ripe with the fruit of foolishness and desire. He published many erotically-themed engravings. But there are also a few pieces of original erotic art by Rowlandson that were never engraved and published.

One such has recently come into the marketplace; I have found no record of it ever being published.  The Old Harlot's Dream (undated) is an elaborate fantasia featuring a recumbent, sexed-out, desiccated hag asleep and while asnooze dreaming of her past professional life as a prostitute. Leering clients, disembodied virile members, and tableaus of her first and last sexual encounters swirl around her as if in an opium pipe-dream phantasmagoria. The wages of sin appear to be poverty, premature aging, and nightmares, the golden years of retirement turned to lead by the alchemy of too much fornication for hire - and the sharp eye of Thomas Rowlandson. So much for  a life of pleasure; the road of excess leads not to wisdom but to wizendom.

While it is difficult if not impossible to see it in this small reproduction, Rowlandson provides the title to the piece in his hand in the lower left corner of this drawing in ink with watercolor wash.

This is the first time that this drawing by Rowlandson has  been seen outside private collections. Booktryst is pleased to be able to show it to you.

The asking price is $12,500.
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Image of The Old Harlot's Dream courtesy of Lame Duck Books, which, though it has closed its brick and mortar doors, maintains an online presence.

Art Cyclopedia has an excellent list of Rowlandson collections in museums and public art galleries here.

Wikimedia Commons has a gallery of Rowlandson's erotic prints here.
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2 comments:

  1. ooh, that's pretty dark for Rowlandson... quite like his satirical (and often surreal!) erotic lithographs.

    Thanks for letting us know about this piece :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. sorry, meant to say engravings (not lithographs! lol)

    ReplyDelete

 
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