Sujet

Letter-writers and dealers in cigar-ends at Rome, 1864. Creator: Unknown.

Légende

Letter-writers and dealers in cigar-ends at Rome, 1864. Engraving from a sketch by M. Mariani. '...especially on Sundays after mass, motley groups station themselves near a dirty-looking man who is sheltered by a large and tolerably deteriorated umbrella. This man is the public letter-writer, and it is he who, for a few pence, compiles for such of the unfortunate Roman people as do not possess the art of writing, their epistles, petitions, requests, demands, claims, and supplications to their Eminences of the Paternal Government...[He]...is confidently relied upon to give his advice and the benefit of his long experience in the conversations and discussions that take place hurriedly between him and his plebeian customers on the subjects of their various misfortunes, to be duly recited and turned to graphic account in the poorly-paid document resulting from the consultation. Another peculiar kind of business...is the trade in cigar-ends, or pieces of partly-smoked cigars picked up by enterprising descendants of Romulus, who pursue this "branch of commerce" in their perambulations. The secondhand merchandise finds a ready sale, and is either employed...for chewing, or for smoking in the small wooden pipes used by the modern Romans'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.

Crédit

Photo12/Heritage Images/The Print Collector

Notre référence

HRM24A15_485

Model release

NA

Property release

NA

Licence

Droits gérés

Format disponible

64,0Mo (7,0Mo) / 47,9cm x 33,5cm / 5660 x 3953 (300dpi)

Mots clés

transport transportation Europe animal Italy Italian building buildings female women woman people male job man men bureaucracy education arts country Rome lazio body bodies dog dogs writing art guy costume occupation tables clothes British letter letters feet foot pen color smoking dress table traditional costume poor poverty Roman parasols parasol alley location umbrellas umbrella century horse drawn Britain profession open air blinds cigar cigars tobacco newspapers press barefoot clothing print blind literacy furniture accessory accessories alleyway concept horse and carriage correspondence APPAREL B&W street scene bare feet open-air writer engraved engraving horse-drawn road Transport Colour quill pen author 19th century black & white black and white B W scribe white and black horse-drawn carriage illiteracy illiterate nineteenth century The Print Collector bureaucratic horse-drawn vehicle Illustrated London News knife grinder sun blind TGN the body traditional dress ILN street newspaper horsedrawn Unknown 19th-century clothing & dress fashion & clothing