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Image

A pen and ink and watercolor drawing of boisterous, aristocratic Englishmen seated in high-backed chairs. The bewigged men talk, sleep, and look around the art and marble-bust filled room.
A pen and ink and watercolor drawing of boisterous, aristocratic Englishmen seated in high-backed chairs. The bewigged men talk, sleep, and look around the art and marble-bust filled room.
A pen and ink and watercolor drawing of boisterous, aristocratic Englishmen seated in high-backed chairs. The bewigged men talk, sleep, and look around the art and marble-bust filled room.
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  • A pen and ink and watercolor drawing of boisterous, aristocratic Englishmen seated in high-backed chairs. The bewigged men talk, sleep, and look around the art and marble-bust filled room.
  • A pen and ink and watercolor drawing of boisterous, aristocratic Englishmen seated in high-backed chairs. The bewigged men talk, sleep, and look around the art and marble-bust filled room.
  • A pen and ink and watercolor drawing of boisterous, aristocratic Englishmen seated in high-backed chairs. The bewigged men talk, sleep, and look around the art and marble-bust filled room.

Thomas Rowlandson

A Meeting of Cognoscenti (After Dinner)

Description

Maker

Thomas Rowlandson (British, 1756-1827)

Title

A Meeting of Cognoscenti (After Dinner)

Year

ca. 1790-1800

Medium

  • Pen and ink and watercolor over graphite on wove paper

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

  • Pen and ink and watercolor over graphite on wove paper

Materials

watercolor

Supports

  • wove paper

Dimensions

24 x 36.5 cm (9 7/16 x 14 3/8 inches)

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Gift of Mrs. Gustav Radeke

Object Number

20.504

Type

  • Drawings and Watercolors

Projects & Publications

Publications

  • Books

A Handbook of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design

  • Journal

Pilgrims of Beauty: Art and Inspiration in 19th-Century Italy

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Drawing Closer
Four Hundred Years of Drawing from the RISD Museum
Mar 12, 2022 – Sep 04, 2022

Label copy

In an elegant interior filled with art, 11 rather inelegant-looking men have gathered around a fireplace for after-dinner drinks. The refined setting and the figures in conversation identify the party as cognoscenti, or connoisseurs. In the late 1700s, when English caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson made this drawing, such people and their pretensions were easy fodder for satirists, who regularly poked fun at them in prints, drawings, and paintings, sometimes referencing the boozy nature of their gatherings.

Pilgrims of Beauty
Art and Inspiration in 19th-Century Italy
Feb 03, 2012 – Jul 08, 2012

Label copy

Thomas Rowlandson’s satirical pictures and prints poked fun at every aspect of English society. Here he gently ridicules the 18th-century Grand Tour and the culture of refinement it fostered among the wealthy and privileged. These gentlemen Cognoscenti (Italian for connoisseurs) meet to share knowledge and compare collections of art and antiquities, such as the two busts displayed on ledges on the left wall. However, the distorted faces of these statues and the sleepy demeanor of the men suggest that their intellectual interests may be more social performance than genuine scholarly pursuit-that they only claim to have a higher appreciation for Italy’s history and artifacts. Such elite circles soon widened and diversified as travel became affordable for the middle classes in the 19th century.

From Dürer to Van Gogh
Gifts from Eliza Greene Radeke and Helen Metcalf Danforth
Jun 05, 2008 – Oct 26, 2008

Label copy

Rowlandson portrayed the follies and pretensions at all levels of English society. A Meeting of the Cognoscenti spoofs the men who met to discuss Italian art after their return from the Grand Tour of Europe. Within a large, Georgian-period interior, Rowlandson created a series of parallels between the men and the objects placed about the room. The primly positioned high-back chairs along the wall mimic their body language, while the marble busts atop brackets seem to sneer facetiously at the group.

The English Eye
British Painting from the 17th to the 19th Centuries; Contemporary British Art; Old Master British Drawings and Watercolors; British Picture Books for Children; Three Centuries of British Decorative Arts, Textiles, and Costume
Jun 21, 1991 – Sep 01, 1991
Master Drawing from the Museum and a Private Collection
Jun 19, 1946 – Oct 27, 1946

Use & Feedback

Image use

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This object is in the Public Domain and available under a CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication

Tombstone

Thomas Rowlandson (British, 1756-1827)
A Meeting of Cognoscenti (After Dinner), ca. 1790-1800
Pen and ink and watercolor over graphite on wove paper
24 x 36.5 cm (9 7/16 x 14 3/8 inches)
Gift of Mrs. Gustav Radeke 20.504

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We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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