Thomas Rowlandson

Bears signature, pen and brown ink and watercolour over traces of pencil on laid paper, stamped with collector’s mark

30.4 x 23.3 cm; 12 x 9 1/8 inches

Provenance

Henry Scipio Reitlinger (1882-1950), Lugt 2274a; Redleaf Gallery, Tunbridge Wells; Bonham’s, 7 March 2006, lot 46

This drawing shows Rowlandson’s more compassionate side and is a poignant portrayal of the treatment of fallen women in late 18th century England. The future looks bleak for the subject who was presumably rounded up for prostitution, as does that of her infant, left in the arms of another woman at the door of the institution into which she is being led by a beadle.

Reitlinger was a mining engineer, who made a fortune as a director of the Naraguta Tin Mine and other mining companies in Nigeria. He served as a captain in WWI. In later life he turned collector and art historian and formed major collections of Old Master drawings, Oriental porcelain and Renaissance ceramics. After his death, the Henry Reitlinger Trust operated the Reitlinger Bequest Museum in Maidenhead between 1951 and 1987; it then closed and transferred works to the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1991. Reitlinger's remaining personal collections were auctioned at Sotheby's after his death. Part 1 with drawings sold Sotheby's, 9.xii.1953, and was followed by six sales in 1954.

His publications include 'Old Master drawings, a handbook for amateurs and collectors' (1922) and 'A Selection of Drawings by old masters in the [V&A] museum collections with a catalogue and notes' (1921).