The Return from a Masquerade - a Morning Scene

This print was published by Carington Bowles. He specialised in comic prints or 'drolls' which mocked polite society. His print shop, a family business, was located in St Paul's Churchyard. Bowles employed Robert Dighton in the 1780s and early 1790s to design humorous mezzotints for him. In addition to his work as an artist, Dighton also worked as a singer in Covent Garden and Sadler's Wells. He began his artistic career as a portraitist, but is best known for his engravings and mezzotints like this one.

Here Dighton shows a fashionable woman returning from a party in a sedan chair in a parody of wealth and social status. She is wearing fancy dress, a shepherdess costume. She is portrayed in an embarrassing light, hanging out of the chair asleep, probably drunk. She has dropped her mask, which has been picked up by a chimney sweep. Her porters and an onlooker are laughing at her.