Walking Up the High Street, Edinburgh

What it is

This is an etching by Thomas Rowlandson, dated 1786, titled Walking Up the High Street. It is part of a series called Picturesque Beauties of Boswell. The image shows a tall man in a tricorn hat holding a walking stick and gripping the arm of a shorter, stouter man who leans in with a grimace. Stone walls and a cobbled street stand behind them. The print is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Why it matters

Rowlandson made this caricature just after Johnson's death, and it mocks the partnership between Johnson and James Boswell, which was recorded in Boswell's journal of their journey to the Hebrides. The print shows how contemporaries saw the pair. It also reminds students that caricature was a popular way of commenting on well-known people in the late 1700s.

Look closer

• Which figure seems to lead, and what does the body language suggest about the relationship?
• Why might an artist exaggerate features like a grimace or a tall hat?
• What does this print leave out about the friendship between the two men?