Chris Beetles Gallery

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The Love Letter

Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827)

Price

£7,500

Signed

Signed and dated 1807

Medium

Watercolour and ink

Dimensions

11 ¼ x 8 ¾ inches

Exhibited

'The Illustrators: The British Art of Illustration 1791-2024', Chris Beetles Gallery, London, November 2024-January 2025, no 5

A version of this drawing appeared as a wood engraving titled Credulity in W H Harrison’s The Humourist, a Companion for the Christmas Fireside (1831), almost 25 years after the present drawing was produced and four years after Rowlandson’s death. In the image, a young woman reads an illicit love letter at a Finishing School for Girls, while the messenger stands behind her.

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