Pastime in Portugal

Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827 · April 1, 1811

The principal figure in this picture is that of a young officer belonging to the British army opposed to the French legions on the Peninsula; in company with a Portuguese don he has come to visit one of the nunneries which were sufficiently abundant in the country ; three well-favoured members of the sisterhood and a sour-looking old harridan, by way of duenna, have come to the grill or large grated window, which was employed to cut off the 'cloistered ones ' from the rest of the world. We are able to gather from the illustrations of the period that travellers were accustomed to make visits to nunneries, where they purchased objects manufactured by the inmates, who were regarded by our countrymen as a kind of show ; the visitors, however, were always restricted to the outside of the grating which separated the sisterhood from more intimate association with a wicked world. In Rowlandson's sketch the pretty nuns are offering silk purses, of their own knitting, to their dashing visitor, whose attention is more exclusively occupied by the very decided personal attractions of the fair recluses.