Angling at Sadler's Wells

This print was included as plate 10 in a book called Eccentric Excursions or literary and pictorial sketches of Countenance Character & Country in England & S Wales, by George Moutard Woodward.

This plate features eight men, the middle group of whom are shown fishing in a small piece of water identified as Sadler’s wells Theatre beside New River Head in Islington. It depicts the extreme north section of a reservoir and the theatre is shown in the background. Although the area was popular with anglers it is unlikely that many fish were actually caught.

Isaac Cruikshank (1756-1811) was a Scottish painter and caricaturist who moved to London in 1783. He was a contemporary of Thomas Rowlandson and James Gillray and died of alcohol poisoning at the early age of fifty five.