Description:
Intensely detailed activities of an acting company preparing for a performance and using a barn as dressing room. Lower left has a crown with label: "The act against strolling players". To its right on a bed is another flier reading: " By a company of comedians from The Theatres of London..." Watermark, perhaps double eagle, partially visible.
Label Text:
This complex print shows a troupe of actresses and child actors preparing for an evening performance. The dilapidated barn is littered with pieces of stage scenery and props, such as celestial clouds and Roman standards, which set the scene for the numerous visual plays on high and low culture within the composition. Actresses were associated with prostitution at this time. Here the scene is dominated by a pretty young woman in the centre. As the viewers take in her provocatively displayed body, she acknowledges their presence with a sideways look and faint smile. Her hair ornaments include a moon, the symbol of Diana, the virgin huntress. Thus she is both undressing and ‘performing’ as the goddess.
Hogarth Exhibition, Tate Britian, London (Feb. 7 - April 29, 2007)
Subjects:
Engraving; Etching Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=MH+2003.16.1 |
