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Modern Antiques
Archaeology played an important part in the national identities of Middle Easterners. However, the colonial powers were also very interested in the Middle Eastern history in ancient times. The interest increased after Napoleon’s occupation of Egypt (1798) and the new discoveries relating to Egypt’s past. In this 1806 cartoon "Modern Antiques,” Thomas Rowlandson satirizes the British enthusiasm for things ancient-Egyptian in the years after Napoleon's military expedition against Egypt.
For example, a woman wrote to the Morning Chronicle newspaper in 1805, complaining that "since this accursed Egyptian style came into fashion... my eldest boy rides on a sphinx instead of a rocking-horse, my youngest has a papboat in the shape of a crocodile, and my husband has built a water closet in the shape of a pyramid, and has his shirts marked with a lotus."
Learning Resources Name: Modern Antiques
Material: Etching
Size:
Height: 31 cm (12.25 in)
Length: 23.5 cm (9.25 in)
Date: 1806
Place of Origin: Great Britain
Location: Wikimedia Commons
Source and Registration#: Wikimedia Commons. Link to resource
(accessed May 4, 2010).
Material: Digital Image
Size: 501 x 601 pixels (125 KB)
Date: March 2006
Orit Bashkin
Assistant Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of Chicago
