The Portrayal of Skating Before Gillray

This unfinished drawing is a typical Rowlandson crowd scene with a variety of amusing comic incidents. Among the pratfalls and sexual embarrassments, however, are a few sucessful skaters illustrating attitudes described in Robert Jones's Treatise on Skating.

Skating on the Serpentine in Hyde Park

Thomas Rowlandson
Skating on the Serpentine in Hyde Park 1780s
© Trustees of the British Museum