A Jewish clothes trader and a butcher

Robert Dighton was a painter of portraits, decorative subjects and caricatures. This coloured drawing is a good example of the latter. The artist parodies the gentile butcher, depicted smoking a clay pipe and complacently admiring his stall. A Jewish man, dressed in several layers of clothing, has appeared at his side and gestures towards the meat on display. With a hat in one hand, he seems to be proposing an exchange, which the butcher is mulling over.

In 1772, aged twenty-five years old, Dighton entered the Royal Academy Schools. He went on to establish a practice as both a drawing-master and a painter of miniatures. Dighton became famous for his caricatures which satirised a range of social 'types', from affluent officers and lawyers to the downtrodden members of society. In addition to his artistic practice, Dighton was also an actor and a singer in London's West End: in 1784 he starred in 'The Beggar's Opera'.

Shortly before this drawing was produced, Dighton was revealed to have regularly stolen prints, including etchings by Rembrandt, from the British Museum. It is interesting to note that many of Dighton's prints and drawings are now held by that same institution.