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Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
THOMAS ROWLANDSON Dr. Last's Examination, Royal College of Physicians.
Pen and ink and wash on cream laid paper, circa 1780. 236x320 mm; 9 1/4x12 5/8 inches.
Provenance: W. Russell Button Gallery, Chicago, with the label; private collection, New York.
The current work is a scene from Samuel Foote's comedy The Devil Upon Two Sticks, which played at the Haymarket and Covent Garden Theatres in London in the 1770s and 1780s. The character of the cobbler-turned-doctor Emmanuel Last, standing on a stool, is seen being examined for entry to the Royal College of Physicians. A patron of London's theaters, Rowlandson (1757-1827) also created a satirical etching of the interior of Covent Garden Theatre in 1786.
