A shaving machine enabling many people to be shaved at the same time. Coloured etching.

Date:
[between 1780 and 1789?]
Reference:
30944i
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About this work

Description

Apparently a parody of industrialisation. The portrait of Tim Bobbin, a Rochdale figure, may suggest a setting in Rochdale, or more generally Lancashire: whether the Rochdale spinning industry had been mechanised by the date of this print (1780s or1790s?) remains to be confirmed. The machine is said in the lettering to be "manufactured and sold by D. Merry and Son, Birmingham", presumably a joke-name

Publication/Creation

[England?] : [publisher not identified], [between 1780 and 1789?]

Physical description

1 print : etching, with colour ; image 13.4 x 21.6 cm

Lettering

Representation of the new shaving machine, whereby a number of persons may be done at the same time with expedition ease and safety. Manufactured and sold by D. Merry and Son, Birmingham. To the public. Whereas the wonderful powers of this useful machine are yet but little known and even doubted by those who have not seen it, the Inventor ... References to the print & explanation ... Extensive lettering A picture on the back wall is titled "Tim Bobbin", i.e. it is supposed to be a portrait of the painter John Collier of Rochdale, Lancashire, known as Tim Bobbin (1708-1786)

Reference

Wellcome Collection 30944i

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