Le Marchand de Lunettes

Engraved by I. St. Helmann, 1776, after a painting by Jean Baptiste Le Prince of 1773, this print depicts the buyer being cuckolded by the telescope seller while he looks through one of the telescopes on sale. This was a common image that linked the idea of the virtuoso distracted from earthly goings on by his other-worldly pursuits with the evident phallic possibilities of the telescope. A similar image was produced in the early nineteenth century by Thomas Rowlandson (see ZBA4569).

Object Details

ID: ZBA4477
Collection: Fine art
Type: Print
Display location: Not on display
Creator: Helman, Isadore Stanislas; Prince, Jean Baptiste Le
Date made: 1776
Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Measurements: Sheet: 486 x 356 mm