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Holdings Information

    • Author/Creator:Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827, artist.
    • Title:[The one-eyed husband, or, The wife's dream] [art original] / T. Rowlandson.
    • Production:[England], [late 18th century?]
    • Physical Description:1 drawing : pen and gray ink and watercolor over pencil ; sheet 25.2 x 22 cm, mounted to 33 x 29 cm, matted to 40 x 36 cm
    • Yale Holdings

       
    • Medium:wove paper.
    • Notes:Title devised by cataloger.
      Signed by the artist in lower right.
      Date supplied by cataloger.
      With an extensive inscription on verso, in an unidentified hand, that might represent the original idea for this drawing that was sent to Rowlandson: A woman being catched in her Bedchamber with her Paramour by her husband who had but one Eye. She ran to him, crying aloud that she dream he saw with both’ and therefore, I must know," added the artful Baggage "whether my Dream be fulfill’d - saying this she shut his good Eye which gave her Gallant an opportunity of slipping away unperceived by her husband.
      Formerly owned by William Drummond; bought by Bourne Gallery at The Grosvenor House Antiques Fair, circa 1998; bought by Pat Barker, who was the owner until 2021. Purchased by The Lewis Walpole Library from Karen Taylor Fine Art, November 2022.
    • Summary:A scene in a chamber with the end of canopy bed visible in the background, left. A woman in her undergarments, a candlestick in the foreground positioned suggestively between her legs, reaches out to cover her husband's one good eye as he walks through the front door; behind her, her lover escapes undetected with his clothes over his arm. Outside, through the open door, a servant can be seen leading a horse, with a barn across the yard. To the right of the door, a chamber pot sits on a ladder-back chair with a hat and a fiddle hanging off pegs on the wall above.
    • Variant and related titles:Wife's dream
    • Format:Visual Material
    • Cite as:Thomas Rowlandson, One-Eyed Husband, or, The Wife's Dream. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.
    • Subjects:Adultery.
      Spouses.
      Bedrooms.
    • Genre/Form:Satires (Visual works)
      Ink drawings.
      Watercolors.