Rustic courtship

Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827 · December 15, 1785

Rowlandson has given his unmistakable characteristics to this plate, which is executed in outline etching, and filled in in aquatint, in admirable facsimile of the artist's drawings, washed in Indian ink, and tastefully coloured. A fair cottage beauty is spinning flax ; her wheel is placed outside the cottage-door ; she is being stared at in vacuous admiration by a rustic Colin Clout, who is grinning from ear to ear and scratching his forehead in perplexity. Hop-poles are seen in the distance, and the landscape is one of those pretty country scenes such as may often be seen in England.