print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1873,0712.876
- Title
- Object: Sports of a country fair. Part the first.
- Description
-
One of a set, representing accidents which progressively increase in gravity, see Nos. 11630-2. The booths are in the background (right) across a large field in which are the foreground figures. The horse has broken loose from a two-wheeled cart, heavily overladen with visitors to the fair, who have been thrown headlong to the ground, where eight men and women lie in a heap, flourishing arms and legs, either despairingly or pugnaciously; one man has remained in the front of the cart and laughs at their plight. Another man holds the broken rope harness of the kicking horse. Two couples (left) run joyfully towards the disaster, an unrehearsed sport of the fair: two country people in front, an over-dressed and elderly couple behind. In front (right) are the bones of a horse.
In the background is a line of tents and booths before which stand spectators. On the stages of adjacent booths persons are posturing, and an acrobat swings on a slack-rope. The names over the booths are 'Polito' [cf. No. 10077], 'Sanders', 'Guny', 'Ast . . [? Astley]'. Farther off (left) a horse- or ass-race is in progress, indicated by tiny figures.
5 October 1810.
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1810
- Dimensions
-
Height: 231 millimetres
-
Width: 337 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VIII, 1947)
Grego, 'Rowlandson', ii. 191 f. (four plates).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1873
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1873,0712.876