1845
watercolor
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Tavern entrertainment, or early music hall is a 1845 watercolor by George Cruikshank, a Romanticism work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
This watercolor shows a noisy music hall in London. A crowd sits around a small stage. Musicians play while people laugh and drink. Cruikshank loved drawing lively scenes like this. He used thin lines and tiny dots to make shadows and textures. This trick is called cross-hatching. Next time you’re in London, see more of his work at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
A pencil and watercolour sketch by George Cruikshank depicts a tavern interior where a female singer performs on a small stage, accompanied by a woman at a piano, while a seated man to the left appears to read from a script. Male patrons occupy benches at two long wooden tables flanking the stage, with an empty table in the foreground right and gas mantles hanging from the ceiling. The scene is rendered in delicate, pale washes, with areas such as the right side of the stage and an audience member’s head left partially unfinished. The drawing likely dates to around 1845 and reflects the…
Read the full account in the museum source.
George Cruikshank or Cruickshank ( KRUUK-shank; 27 September 1792 – 1 February 1878) was a British caricaturist and book illustrator, praised as the "modern Hogarth" during his life.
See the richer artist page
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