Thomas Rowlandson (London 1756-1827)


A Master of the Ceremonies introducing a partnerpen, brown ink and grey wash on laid paper 25.6 x 36.5cm (10 1/16 x 14 3/8in).
|Provenance With Leger Gallery, London, 1976Private Collection, UKLiteratureJ. Grego, Rowlandson the Caricaturist, London, 1880, p.326, illEngravedEtching published by Samuel William Fores, 1795The satirical appeal of Rowlandson's work still strikes home today but there would have been an added piquancy for his contemporaries who would have recognised the people featured in some of his more significant drawings. We know the subject of the present watercolour which dates from 1785 from the print published by Samuel Fores (fig. 1), one of a group of Rowlandson works from the 1780s that were issued as etchings in 1795. The scene shows the Master of Ceremonies introducing an elderly dandy to a pair of ladies who are themselves far from in the first flush of youth, but what they lack in looks they make up for in improbably large wigs and feathered headdresses; to the right a group of robust ladies are dancing with rather more enthusiasm than grace. This is Bath, where throughout the 18th century polite society went for 'the season' to take the waters, socialise, attend balls, gamble and generally to see and be seen. The role of the Master of Ceremonies was a key one. It had grown out of the need, at the start of the century, for someone to organise entertainment for those who had come to the city seeking the curative properties of the spa waters and before long he had become a kind of social ringmaster. The most celebrated Master of Ceremonies was 'Beau' Nash who reigned over Bath from 1704 to 1761 but by the time of Rowlandson's drawing, the two Masters of Ceremonies were Richard Tyson and James King, the latter being the likely subject of the present watercolour. King (fig. 2) had served in the British army during the American war and took up his role in Bath in 1785 where he was elected M.C. of the Lower (Assembly) Rooms. In 1805 he became M.C. of the more prestigious Upper Rooms where he managed proceedings until his death in 1816 and even made a fictional appearance in Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey when he introduced Henry Tilney to Catherine Morland. King's lucrative job involved visiting new arrivals in the city, partly to vet them and assess their suitability to join the 500 or so people who had pre-booked tables, but also to collect a subscription which would permit them to attend the balls, gambling tables and baths. This would have allowed him to get to know everyone in the city and gather the intelligence essential for someone who was expected to make the most appropriate introductions and even to match-make. Part concierge, part diplomat, King was tasked not only with introducing newcomers but also with managing the dance floor, overseeing the smooth running of proceedings and diffusing situations at risk of combustion.The beau monde who congregated in Bath every year provided perfect material for Rowlandson's pen and the gouty gentlemen, ageing ladies and quack doctors were immortalised in a set of 12 prints published from his drawings in 1798 under the title of The Comforts of Bath. He was not the first to draw on the city as a source of comic satire, Christopher Anstey's book The New Bath Guide or the Memoirs of the Blunderhead Family of 1766 described Bath through the prism of two social ingénues fresh from the country and it enjoyed huge popular success over the last decades of the century. Rowlandson's prodigious output included landscapes and scenes of everyday life which he sketched with remarkable speed and facility, but his name will always be synonymous with social satire thanks to the wide circulation of prints made from his watercolours. The present example embodies the skillfully-drawn, humorous social commentary for which he is so well known and dates from the decade in which he produced his finest work. Among his greatest achievements were the large-scale, sophisticated compositions painted in the 1780s which he exhibited at the Royal Academy and were intended to rival oil paintings. Some of the most memorable are Vauxhall Gardens (see: J. Baskett and D. Snellgrove, The drawings of Thomas Rowlandson in the Paul Mellon Collection no 12, pp 13-14), Box Lobby Loungers (Getty Museum, 84. GG. 645) An English Review and A French Review (Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, inv. no. R.L.13720 and 13721).