2-871-269 - Shirley Markham Collection/Heritage Images

The Parsonage, c1780-1825. 'This drawing of The Parsonage is vigorous, emphatic, and one might say brilliant in Rowlandson's best manner. He gives us an idea of the luxurious habits of the upper classes in the England of that time. With this type of subject it is difficult to establish a line of demarcation between seriousness and humor, for the scene is only one of many where the cultivated are real material for the subjects of Rowlandson's imaginative and prolific pen...Rowlandson's typical and conventional pretty lady holds the attention of her dashing suitor with a selection on the spinet, while on the other hand, a group of over-indulgent and unattractive elders are completely absorbed in themselves'. From "The Watercolour Drawings of Thomas Rowlandson from the Albert H. Wiggin Collection in the Boston Public Library" with commentary by Arthur W. Heintzelman. [Watson-Guptill Publications, Inc., New York, 1947]