Friday, August 5, 2016

Hand-colored Mezzotints of 18th-century Prostitutes

Carrington Bowles
Wantonness Mask'd
1771
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

Carrington Bowles (1724-1793) inherited a family publishing business and ran it successfully enough all his life to be able to pass it on to his own son, who later became a successful politician. The firm specialized in maps. The production of popular prints drawn from actual everyday life became lucrative in England toward the end of the 18th century, and Bowles participated in the boom. For these mezzotints he probably recruited many of the same craftspeople already employed by the firm in designing, drafting, printing, and hand-coloring maps. The names of such subordinate artists are mostly unknown. The series sampled here exploits the figure of the contemporary urban prostitute both as fashion-plate and as sexual titillation.    

Carrington Bowles
The Light Guinea, or, the Blade in the Dumps
1773-74
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

Carrington Bowles
The Last Shift
1792-93
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

Carrington Bowles
A St Giles's Beauty
1784
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

Carrington Bowles
A St James's Beauty
1784
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

Carrington Bowles
The Bargain Struck, or, Virtue Conquer'd by Temptation
1773
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

Carrington Bowles
A Bagnigge Wells Scene, or, No Resisting Temptation
1776
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

Carrington Bowles
A Nettle between Two Roses
1790
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

Carrington Bowles
Two Privateers Attacking a Man of War
1782-84
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

Carrington Bowles
An Evening's Invitation, with a Wink from the Bagnio
1773
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

Carrington Bowles
A Decoy for the Old as well as the Young
1773
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

Carrington Bowles
A Foolish Woman
 (for she sitteth at the door of her house ...)

1780
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

Carrington Bowles
The Stay-maker taking a Pleasing Circumference
1784
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

Carrington Bowles
Ho! Ho! These late hours will soon destroy me!
1770-72
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

I am grateful to the British Museum for making these images available.