Maggs Bros.

Rare. There is an example in the British Museum (apparently with hand-colouring) and one in the Yellow Centre for British Art (uncoloured). Both recorded examples and the present have the date scratched out of the imprint. The BM catalogue suggests this print may have been part of a series of prints illustrating “Proverbs” and suggests that the woman is dressed in a similar manner to “A Foolish Woman”(Bowles, 2nd September, 1780, see BMSat 5824). This print is numbered “438” in the lower left-hand corner. According to D’Oench this was John Raphael Smith’s final print for Bowles before he moved to Oxford Street and concentrated on his firm’s business.

A very striking engraving warning women of all classes about the dangers of drinking alcohol.

The print shows the meeting of two women who are, as the title suggests, mistress (right) and maid (left) on the pavement outside a public house. Both of their faces betray signs of drunkenness: their eyes are half closed and their mouths gaping. The mistress leans to the left and dangles her hands limply. The maid looks at her with arms akimbo, somewhat masking her own intoxication. The background shows a part of the front of the house and the lower part of a sash-window. Through an open door on the right casks can be seen marked with the letter B. Glasses stand on the shelf and between the window ad door a board is inscribed: “Dealer in Spirituous Liquors … unds &c” the rest of the text is obscured by the lady’s large hat.

Beneath the title is engraved: “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. Proverbs Ch. xx. verse Ist.”

This unusual and unflinching print reflects the strong undercurrent of moral reform and religious revival that ran through Britain in the 1780s and echoes the legacy of the Gin crisis in London earlier in the century. Hanna More’s popular moralistic broadside poem The Gin-Shop would also continue this theme later in the century. This particular print is unusual though as the suggestion is enforced that the effect of drink was just as damaging to the upper classes as it was to the lower. D’Oench suggests that the mistress and the maid are intentionally supposed to look similar to enforce the idea that drinking in wealthy women dragged them down to the same station as their servants (Copper into Gold: Prints by John Raphael Smith (1999) p.176).