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Filial Affection, or a Trip to Gretna Green

Publisher John Raphael Smith British
December 15, 1785
Not on view
An eloping couple is carried north towards Scotland in a fast post-carriage or chaise, pursued by the woman's angry father and a posse of riders. A signpost at right points "To Gretna Green". The father urges his horse forward and holds a whip, as the man and woman lean out of the coach windows and brandish pistols. A new restrictive marriage law, passed in England in 1754, encouraged couples to elope to Scotland. At Gretna Green, the first village over the Scottish border, they could marry under a medieval practice that required them only to make a statement of their intenstions before a witness.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Filial Affection, or a Trip to Gretna Green
  • Artist: Thomas Rowlandson (British, London 1757–1827 London)
  • Publisher: John Raphael Smith (British, baptized Derby 1751–1812 Doncaster)
  • Date: December 15, 1785
  • Medium: Hand-colored etching with aquatint
  • Dimensions: Image: 10 1/2 in. × 17 in. (26.7 × 43.2 cm)
    Sheet: 11 15/16 × 17 5/8 in. (30.4 × 44.7 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959
  • Object Number: 59.533.119
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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