A City Chop House

A waiter is depicted carrying a tankard and a bowl towards the gentlemen diners at their table. The man with his back to the viewer, dressed in a blue coat, eagerly anticipates his meal and has his knife and fork ready. His companion looks less sure about the food coming his way.

The wooden partitions seen between the tables are typical of the London chop-house of the period. Such establishments were common in the City, and along Fleet Street and the Strand, until late Victorian times. They offered a lunch of meat and a pint of ale for as little as sixpence.

A draughtsman and book illustrator, Thomas Rowlandson was a witty commentator of contemporary society. Although he trained at the Royal Academy, he worked in pen as opposed to oils and developed works with political and social narratives. Here Rowlandson has focused on the appetites of the seated men - food and drink is a reccuring theme in his drawings.