The Humours and Diversions of Bartholomew Fair

This engraving represents an actual event. Bartholomew Fair was the most famous of London’s city fairs, dating back to the late sixteenth-century. It was held at Smithfield and had previously lasted 14 days from 24 August. But its turbulence and riotous excess resulted in it being shortened to three or four days in 1735, the date of this print. Wordsworth later described it as a ‘parliament of monsters’.

The entertainment that was on offer is carefully shown. Fair stands such as Mrs Harris (tumblers with a monkey); Yeat’s Dexterity of Hand (a puppet show); Pinchbeck’s (a magical clock) and Lee and Harper (a comedy called Hob in the Well) are all depicted. These acts were the forerunners of shows such as Punch and Judy which we can see today. Within the busy crowd carnival acts are seen mixing with the fairgoers and streetsellers, while on the far right a pole for a rope dancer or trapeze artist is portrayed. Unlike Hogarth’s Southwark Fair, published around the same time in 1733 which satirised a chaotic London street fair, Dicey’s engraving is a literal and straightforward representation.