The Gig Shop or Kicking Up a Breeze at Nell Hammiltons Hop

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Joseph Grego, Rowlandson's early cataloguer, describes this impromptu boxing in "a place of 'fast' resort, [where] dancing has given way to much rougher diversions...[with] the place appropriated for the dance...given up to a "mill" conducted on strikingly professional principles. One of the combatants has "peeled" in recognized style, and his opponent has stripped to his shirt; the backers and seconders of the fisticuffing bucks...are members of the fair sex...A ring of delighted spectators are enjoying the fight and the fun from the benches, while other gentlemen are prudently engaged in restraining their fair partners from getting mixed up in the squabble." The term gig in the title refers to something that whirls–dancers and boxers–and "mill" is slang for bare-knuckle boxing. Nell Hammilton may be Elizabeth, Duchess of Hamilton, wife of the 8th Duke, who had promoted boxing. The couple's marriage was notorious for its many affairs and a country dance of the period was named "Hamilton House" because it involved so many changes of partner.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art