Thomas Rowlandson was born in London, England on July 14 in either 1756 or 1757. He first exhibited a drawing when he was only eighteen, and soon both Sir Joshua Reynolds and Benjamin West were praising him. But serious painting on a large scale never suited the Rowlandson temperament. Next to his work, he liked to drink and gamble, and after his money was gone, he would draw saleable drawings, prints, illustrations and watercolors. Being so much in demand, he often worked too fast for quality; at his best his strokes were sure, his delicate palette always in harmony.

Rowlandson occupied a unique position at the opposite pole from the majority of English watercolor painters, who were indifferent to the human element in the landscape...