A Penny Barber

Thomas Rowlandson

A Penny Barber

London, W Holland, 1789

Etching and aquatint

Original hand colouring

335 x 230 mm

Trimmed within platemark.

£350

A rare, early Rowlndson.

A very fat man draped in a sheet, his vast chin lathered, turns his eyes upwards to a thin barber who stands beside him (left), his bowl in one hand, soap in the other. Behind (left) a bald man bends over a basin, stanching a wound; and (right) the barber’s man applies a flat-iron to a wig on a standing wig-block with a carved face. From the raftered ceiling hangs a lamp in a rectangular (?) paper shade inscribed: ‘The Oldest Shaving Shop in London Most Mony for second Hand Wigs’. On the wall hang a bird in a cage, a print of two men, a wig. Wig-blocks, a razor, and the customer’s wig lie on the floor.