The fat and handsome women with the rustic seductiveness of her healthy flesh, with her mien at the same time grave and sly, with her joyous skin ...

...but it must be said that, how desirable she may ever be, the women of Rowlandson is merely animal, without complications of the mind that interest. -  J.K. Huysmans

 

Thomas Rowlandson, the son of a successful businessman, was born in London in July 1756. Thomas learnt to draw before he could write and by the time he was ten he was spending all his free time drawing. After attending Eton he became a student at the Royal Academy. At sixteen he left for France where he spent two years at a drawing school in Paris.

In 1777 Rowlandson opened a studio in Wardour Street where he established himself as a portrait painter. Rowlandson also travelled a great deal in Europe where he drew pictures of his experiences. Rowlandson became friends with James Gillray, the leading caricaturist in London. Rowlandson was a heavy gambler and after losing the money he inherited from a rich aunt, he paid his debts with drawings of popular and low-life subjects...