A Snug Birth in a Shower
This fashion satire proposes a practical application for the huge broad-brimmed hats fashionable in London in the late 1820s, showing a woman wearing a green dress using her hat to protect two dandies from the rain. Both have exaggerated hair and whiskers, and carry furled umbrellas but note that they find the present arrangement much more to their liking. Like many of Heath's prints from this period, it is signed with a small top-hatted dandy holding an umbrella–Paul Pry, a nosy character from a play.
Artwork Details
- Title: A Snug Birth in a Shower
- Artist: William Heath ('Paul Pry') (British, Northumbria 1794/95–1840 Hampstead)
- Date: 1828
- Medium: Hand-colored etching
- Dimensions: Plate: 14 11/16 × 10 1/4 in. (37.3 × 26 cm)
Sheet: 17 3/16 × 10 15/16 in. (43.7 × 27.8 cm) - Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: Gift of Jill Spalding, 2022
- Object Number: 2022.309.25
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
More Artwork
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William Heath ('Paul Pry')
S. Gans
1830
William Heath ('Paul Pry')
Thomas McLean
1827–29
Multiple artists/makers
1827–29
William Heath ('Paul Pry')
Thomas McLean
1828–29
William Heath ('Paul Pry')
Thomas McLean
1828
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