Print of the Day: Votaries of Fashion in the Temple of Folly, 1808

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Votaries of Fashion in the Temple of Folly
Tegg, 1808
The British Museum

This satirical print dates to 1808 and is entitled, “Votaries of Fashion in the Temple of Folly.” The hand-colored print was made by Thomas Rowlandson after an original by George Moutard Woodward, and published in London by Thomas Tegg.

The print served as the frontispiece to The “Chesterfield Travestie; Or, School for Modern Manners. Embellished with Ten Caricatures, Engraved by Woodward from original Drawings by Rowlandson [sic] . . . 1808.”

In the composition, Folly, a woman of fashion, is enthroned beneath a canopy. She has donned a fool’s motley and holds the bauble of a jester. She’s joined by a Punchinello as a crowd forms to stare at them in the sumptuous room.