A Gin Shop

The theme of beauty contrasted with ugliness runs throughout Rowlandson's work. In this drawing, a bold, stylishly dressed young woman, surrounded by a number of sozzled customers, is served gin by a crafty-looking landlord.

Although a law had been passed, in 1751, restricting the sale of alcohol by imposing a substantial duty on spirits and forbidding their retail by distillers, chandlers and grocers, the abuse of gin remained a problem amongst the working classes into the 19th century.

By comparing glowing health and beauty with alcohol-clouded dissolution, Rowlandson is presumably implying the inevitable result of over-indulgence. One authority, writing in 1801, asserted that 'considerably more than one-eighth of all the deaths that take place in persons above twenty years old, happen prematurely through excess in spirits drinking'.