

Raising the Wind

Thomas Rowlandson
London, 1812
Published by T. Rowlandson, James Street Adelphi
[The original date of publication, "October 30, 1805," has been scored through at the bottom right of the print]
Drypoint engraving, hand-colored with water color
[44.8 x 28.4 cm]

The text beneath the caption reads:

When Noblemen have lost Race horse, and all their Rino spent—Then little Isaac draws the Bond, and lends for Cent per Cent.

"Rino" or "rhino" is an upper class slang term, origin unknown, for money. In the print, an inebriated young English nobleman, who has lost heavily at the race track, is mortgaging the title-deeds of the family estate to an unsavory pair of money-lenders. The ornately framed pictures on the wall combine to reveal the route to the young man's downfall. It was commonly believed that Jewish money-lenders were engaged in a conspiracy to buy up the patrimony of the English landed gentleman. "I think there are just grounds to apprehend," cautioned one mid eighteenth-century writer, "that we should suffer more by the exchange of the English country-gentleman...than we should gain by the acquisition of those riches, by means of which, estates might pass from the hands of Christians to those of Jews" (A Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend Concerning the Naturalization of the Jews, 1753, 12-13).