2-871-271 - Shirley Markham Collection/Heritage Images

Taking a Mean Advantage, c1780-1825. A man leers at his female companion's thigh which is revealed as she climbs over a gate. 'In this amusing and somewhat stylized composition, we cannot fail to see certain resemblances to Antoine Watteau's interpretation of country scenes, even to the dress of the characters and the humor of the situation. Yet beyond this, the handling, both in color and freedom of drawing, is unmistakably that of the English master'. 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]