11. Thomas Rowlandson
(1756-1827)
The Welsh Bard

(click on image to print)
Rowlandson , The Welsh Bard

The Welsh Bard

Hand-colored etching, 1802, 281 x 242 mm. A fine impression, hand-colored as published as the frontispiece to Edward Jones’ The Bardic Museum , London, A. Strahan, 1802, on brownish wove paper, trimmed inside the plate mark but complete and with ample blank plate margin. While Rowlandson etched the plate himself, the figures were originally drawn by Julius Cesar Ibbetson and the landscape by John Smith. The tradition of Welsh bards, singing their songs while accompanying themselves on the harp, is a venerable one, but it must have been a considerable feat to drag that harp up into the hills.