Turnips & Carrots oh.

One of a series of engravings derived from a set of paintings by Francis Wheatley entitled 'The Cries of London’. ‘Turnips and Carrots ho!’ features an attractive street vendor selling a bunch of turnips. Wheatley’s fourteen paintings of the ‘Cries’ were exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1792 and 1795 and were extremely popular. As the paintings attracted a large amount of attention Colnaghi agreed to publish a set of engravings, of which this is one.

They portrayed a range of idealised street vendors selling a variety of goods, including primroses, milk, oranges, matches, mackerel, cherries and chairs and they highlight the fact that these street sellers advertised their goods with a musical shout or a melodic rhyme. They present a sanitised depiction of London streets and through their frequent reproduction are in part responsible for the persistence of this romanticised view.