{"product_id":"lesson-westward-morning-visit-betsy-cole-yzv59kr9","title":"A Lesson Westward - Or a Morning Visit to Betsy Cole.","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRare.\u003c\/strong\u003e There are impressions of this print in the \u003cstrong\u003eBM\u003c\/strong\u003e (including a proof before letters), \u003cstrong\u003eVictoria and Albert Museum\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cstrong\u003eYale\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eThe Met.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis partially coloured Mezzotint depicts a Lady being taught to drive a horse and cart. The Lady – in her highly fashionable dress, trimmed and ruched, gloved and slippered, her hat plumed and ribboned – awkwardly fumbles with the reigns and whip. Her instructor sits behind on the edge of the cart – that also carries a sheaf of straw – in a striped jacket. On the side of the cart an inscribed board reads “Tom Longtrot’s Academny for Young Ladies. Driving taught to an Inch, Ladies completely finish’d in a fortnight, for Gig, Whiskey or Phaeton: Single Lesson half a Crown, Five for half a Guinea” (the Gig, Whiskey and Phaeton were all kinds of horse drawn carriages). The amused face of the tollkeeper is shown behind the racing carriage as they pass the Hammersmith turnpike. Next to the tollhouse is the façade of a handsome Georgian house with a square pillared porch inscribed “Wilson”. As the British museum catalogue notes, this building is The Bell and Anchor Tavern which historically sat on the corner of Blythe Road near Olympia. In the foreground a man to the side of the road clutches a post with an expression of alarm, and the cart’s hind wheel runs over one of the piglets of the litter gathered nearby.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe inscription “when once the women take the Reins in hands ‘Tis then too true: that men have no command” satirises the subversion of gender roles that occurred in the second half of the eighteenth century when it became fashionable for women of the upper class to drive themselves. The V\u0026amp; A catalogue details that: “The taste for poking fun at women’s driving skills evidently goes back much further than the invention of the motor car.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAccording to the BM catalogue Dighton’s original watercolour for this print from the collection of Mr Jeffrey Rose was sold at Sotheby’s, 23 February 1978, lot 14.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Maggs Bros.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67908326555957,"sku":"263039","price":1500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0669\/0045\/9677\/files\/263039_01.jpg?v=1792728076","url":"https:\/\/store.maggs.com\/products\/lesson-westward-morning-visit-betsy-cole-yzv59kr9","provider":"Maggs Bros.","version":"1.0","type":"link"}