Antique 1808 Thomas Rowlandson Pugin Doctors Commons Aquatint Engraving

Description

Antique 1808 aquatint engraving titled "Doctor's Commons" drawn by Thomas Rowlandson, engraved by Auguste Charles Pugin, aquatint by Joseph Constantine Stadler. Published in London, 1 August 1808 at Rudolph Ackermann's Repository of Arts. From "The Microcosm of London".

"Rowlandson and Pugin here describe the hall of a self-governing, teaching body known as the College of Civilians (or Society of Doctors' Commons) on Paternoster Row. Its members specialized in ecclesiastical and civil law (as opposed to English common law), earned doctorates at Oxford or Cambridge, then were admitted as advocates by the Dean of Arches who served the archbishop of Canterbury. The fellows worked with proctors whose duties paralleled those of solicitors and, in court, concerned themselves with cases of Church and Admiralty law. On an everyday level, they verified and stored documents such as wills and marriage and divorce certificates. By the mid-nineteenth century, as England moved towards establishing a centralized supreme court in charge of both civil and common law, the Doctor's Commons became obsolete and would be dissolved." (Source: Metropolitan Museum) Distressed gilt, carved frame; gray mat.

"Thomas Rowlandson (13 July 1757 – 21 April 1827) was an English artist and caricaturist of the Georgian Era, noted for his political satire and social observation. A prolific artist and printmaker, Rowlandson produced both individual social and political satires, as well as a large number of illustrations for novels, humorous books, and topographical works. Like other caricaturists of his age such as James Gillray, his caricatures are often robust or bawdy. Rowlandson also produced highly explicit erotica for a private clientele; this was never published publicly at the time and is now only found in a small number of collections. His caricatures included those of people in power such as the Duchess of Devonshire, William Pitt the Younger and Napoleon Bonaparte." (Source: Wikipedia)

"Augustus Charles Pugin (born Auguste-Charles Pugin; 1762 – 19 December 1832) was an Anglo-French artist, architectural draughtsman, and writer on medieval architecture. He was born in Paris, then in the Kingdom of France, but his father was Swiss, and Pugin himself was to spend most of his life in England. Pugin left France during the Revolutionary period for unclear reasons about 1798 and later entered the Royal Academy Schools in London to improve his skills. Shortly afterwards he obtained a position as an architectural draughtsman with the architect John Nash. After considering and abandoning a career in architecture Pugin married and settled on a career as a commercial artist working primarily for publishers of illustrated books. He was a skilful watercolourist as well as an accomplished draftsman." (Source: Wikipedia)

"(1755 - 1828) Joseph Constantine Stadler was a prolific German émigré engraver of images after his contemporaries. His engravings are wide-ranging in subject matter and include landscapes, seascapes and portraits, as well as military, sporting and decorative subjects. Stadler was employed by the leading print publisher of the time, John Boydell (1720-1804). On 23 March 1799 Stadler married Ann Elizabeth Sandman at St Anne’s Church, Soho, in London. He was living in Knightsbridge when he died at the age of 73." (Source: UK Government Art Collection)

"Rudolph Ackermann (20 April 1764 in Stollberg, Electorate of Saxony – 30 March 1834 in Finchley, London)[1] was an Anglo-German bookseller, inventor, lithographer, publisher and businessman." (Source: Wikipedia)

Condition

Good Overall - Some dicoloration to paper

Dimensions

19.25" x 0.75" x 15.75" / Sans Frame - 10.75" x 8.75" (WIdth x Depth x Height)