Vauxhall Gardens, on the south bank of the Thames, entertained Londoners and visitors to London for two hundred years.[2] From 1729, under the management of Jonathan Tyers, property developer, impresario and patron of the arts, the gardens grew into an extraordinary business, a cradle of modern painting – with supper boxes decorated with paintings by Francis Hayman and Hubert Gravelot in the 1730s – architecture, sculpture, and music.  A pioneer of mass entertainment, Tyers had to become also a pioneer of mass catering, of outdoor lighting, of advertising, and of all the logistics involved in running one of the most complex and profitable business ventures of the eighteenth century in London.

By the 1750s the site comprised a series of tree-lined walks, pavilions in the latest Rococo taste (these included a Chinese Temple, Gothic Obelisk and Turkish Tent) and large provision of supper rooms for dining and a rotunda seventy feet in diameter for indoor performances. The gardens attracted large numbers of Londoners – in 1749 a rehearsal of Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks, was attended by 12,000 people – from a cross-section of London society. Frederick, Prince of Wales was an early patron, along with many leading fashionable celebrities and musical performers, many of whom gave concerts in the gardens. Most importantly the modest entrance fee – as Angelo noted only a shilling – made it accessible to London’s burgeoning middle and artisanal classes. The diarist James Boswell observed of Vauxhall’s appeal:

'[It] is peculiarly adapted to the taste of the English nation; there being a mixture of curious show, — gay exhibition, musick, vocal and instrumental, not too refined for the general ear; — for all of which only a shilling is paid; and, though last, not least, good eating and drinking for those who choose to purchase that regale.'[3]

It is not surprising, therefore, that Rowlandson should have been a frequent visitor and, to quote Angelo again, found there: ‘plenty of employment for his pencil.’ Thomas Rowlandson was born in London and trained at the Royal Academy Schools, where he won the silver medal in 1777 for a figure in bas-relief. But rather than pursue a career as a sculptor or painter, Rowlandson became a hugely successful draughtsman, a wry observer of contemporary mores and a cartoonist in the manner of Hogarth. Whilst Rowlandson’s sense of the absurd is Hogarthian, his fluid, confident drawing style owes a great deal to French art. Rowlandson’s aunt and financial supporter was of Huguenot extraction and he made a number of visits to France throughout the 1770s where he was exposed to not only French draughtsmen, but a number of Continental subjects, which resulted in several early masterpieces, such as the Place des Victoires (Yale Center for British Art).

In 1783 Rowlandson exhibited three works at the Royal Academy, one was simply entitled Vaux-Hall. This was almost certainly the watercolour now in the Victoria and Albert Museum on which the present print is based and which was praised in the contemporary London press for being: ‘conspicuous for genuine humour.’[4] The composition depicts a view of the Grove at Vauxhall from the Rotunda, with the so-called Gothic Orchestra on the left and the southern row of supper-boxes beyond. The view is populated by many identifiable visitors and performers, with parties at supper, gentlemen ogling young ladies, and a great deal of acute observation. Contemporary viewers would have instantly recognized a number of the individual figures. At the center of the composition are two of the most celebrated society beauties of the period, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and her sister, Henrietta, Lady Duncannon.[5] By the early 1780s the sisters had become a favorite subject for Rowlandson’s satire, as their extravagant and increasingly scandalous private lives filled the pages of the gossip newspapers. On the right, Rowlandson includes the actress Mary ‘Perdita’ Robinson and her husband, shown as a diminutive, elderly man with all the look of a cuckold. A fact confirmed by the figure of George, Prince of Wales, Robinson’s lover, whispering conspiratorially in her ear.

The audience are being entertained by the noted singer Mrs Weichsel, who is seen leaning from the orchestra, but most of the figures are engaged in a range of other activities. In the supper-box on the left viewers have traditionally identified Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Johnson, Boswell and Mrs Thrale.[6] Although as Goldsmith died in 1774 it seems that this may be anecdotal rather than factual. Rowlandson certainly included prominent members of the press, including the proprietor and editor of the gossipy newspaper, The World, Captain Edward Topham who is seen an old fashioned macaroni, peering through his glass at the Duchess of Devonshire and the man dressed in a kilt to the right of the central group is almost certainly James Perry, editor of The London Gazette. More figures are probably identifiable, but as with all of Rowlandson’s greatest images it is less about personal satire, than a wry portrayal of London society and its foibles. Thus Rowlandson delights as much in depicting the orchestra, or the waiter struggling to uncork a bottle, as he does the bon ton.[7]

The success of Rowlandson’s watercolour at the Academy made it an obvious candidate for publication by the burgeoning London print trade. The aquatint plate was made by Francis Jukes, who seems to have learnt the process from his friend Paul Sandby. Aquatint, a tonal method of etching, was perfect for rendering watercolours into print and had been pioneered in the 1770s by the French artist J.B. Le Prince and adapted for commercial use in England by Sandby.[8] The plate was published by John Raphael Smith, one of the most successful and prolific print publishers of the 1780s, who exported impressions of Rowlandson’s print across Europe. Smith continued to sell Rowlandson’s print after the shock of the French Revolution suppressed the market and it is listed in a surviving catalogue he produced in 1798.[9]

As Henry Angelo noted in 1830, Vauxhall was still in print, its popularity making it one of Rowlandson’s most successful compositions. The present sheet is extremely early, given the clarity and richness of the impression, probably made by Smith shortly after Jukes had completed the plate. 

Condition:

The present very early impression dating to soon after its publication in 1785, has survived in outstanding condition, mounted on a sheet of Whatman paper for support, it is trimmed outside the image and below the publication line but within the platemark. There is one vertical crease through the right side of the image and a few short tears and thinned area behind the address at bottom center. There is a small amount of surface dust in the margin at the bottom left but the image is otherwise pristine.