Shaving by Steam
Description:
Dorothy George describes this print:
A complicated piece of machinery fills the centre of a room in a fashionable establishment; an open door (r.) leads into a shop where, in the background, a pretty and extravagantly dressed woman (in the costume of c. 1828) presides at a counter; above the door is a model of the machine, Patent Shavograph!!! Through a window (l.) is seen the Ladies Hair Cutting Room: another machine operates on seated ladies, whose long hair is raised perpendicularly into the mechanism. Above the window is an erection of erect loops of hair, burlesquing the fashion. A dandy, waiting his turn, ogles the ladies through his monocle. Another, sitting on a chair (l.), reads a newspaper, Herald. The ‘Shavograph’ operates from r. to l. upon the customers who sit on a circular bench, each with his head held firm in a wedge cut from a millstone-like disk (B) at the back of his seat. The razor has just sliced off the nose of an officer who stands gesticulating wildly, putting his hand before splashing blood while one dismayed neighbour rises from his seat, and the other shouts Stop! Stop! Four men on the l., waiting their turn for the razor, &c., to reach them, are unconscious of the accident. One is having his head pressed into position by a rod held by a fashionably dressed man (H) who is also working a lever. (86-7)Below the image, the print includes the following text:
EXPLANATION. AAA a circular form on which the shavers sit BBBBBB wheels that govern the position of the head CC the machinery which moves the brush in every required direction D a resevior [sic] of water, boiling hot E a pipe filled with patent double compress’d shaving powder, through which the water is forced to forme [sic] a lather in the brush F GGG the machinery which moves the razor H the Engineer with his directing rod. (Note) it is indispensible that the sitter should be firm and steady, it will be perived [sic] the neglecting this by looking after the shop woman has cost one his nose, but he only pays the penalty of his own imprudence ‘Accidents will occur in the best regulated families . .' (original ellipses)George notes that this quotation appears in Dickens’s David Copperfield; however, the print predates the publication of the novel (1849-50) (87). Seymour’s relationship with Dickens may have some bearing on the source of the quotation.
Copyright:
Courtesy of The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. Copyright, 2009.
Accession Number:
828.0.12
Marks Description
The lower left-hand corner of the print bears the signature, “Shortshanks fecit,” and the lower right-hand corner reads, “pub. by E. King, Chancery Lane.” Below the print is an explanatory key.Printing Context
It is probable that Shaving by Steam originally circulated as an independent, inexpensive print.Associated Events
New steam engine technologies in the early nineteenth century, including the invention of the locomotive, launched rapid technological and industrial change in Britain. Satirists and caricature artists such as Robert Seymour responded immediately to these changes, often highlighting the destructive and dehumanizing potential of these new machines (cf. J. Wosk, Breaking Frame).Associated Texts
Robert Seymour executed a number of caricatures devoted to new technologies in 1828-1830. These include a series of prints entitled Living Made Easy (1830) and The March of Intellect (1829) by Seymour and William Heath. Of particular relevance to this print is The March of Intellect, Mechanical (1829), a print from the latter series, which depicts “a mock identity-changing salon” in which characters submit themselves to various machines meant to violently alter their bodies and appearances, including a “Stretching Machine” and “Amputation by Steam” (Wosk 98; also cf. 88-100 for analysis of Seymour’s technological caricatures.)Subject
This detailed print satirizes new steam technologies and social types by depicting an imaginary, steam-generated shaving machine: in the image, customers are groomed by this complicated and dangerous piece of equipment. One unfortunate customer who cannot remain "firm and steady" after being distracted by a fashionable "shop woman," "pays the penalty of his own imprudence"—his nose is chopped off by the machine's blades. Seymour’s print also satirizes social types as well as technological mechanism, and the various figures are stereotyped by their clothing, their expressions, and especially by their hats. The two men waiting their turn on the left side, for example, are identified as dandies by their top-hats and dainty postures.Significance
Robert Seymour (like George Cruikshank, Robert Cruikshank, and Theodore Lane) is a significant figure in Romantic-era British caricature, and his particular fascination with technology reflects Romantic anxieties and ambivalence concerning the meaning of these new industries. Of particular relevance to this gallery is Seymour's concern with the ways in which new technologies radically alter the human body and self-identity.Bibliography
Bryant, Mark and Simon Heneage. “Robert Seymour.” Dictionary of British Cartoonists and Caricaturists 1730-1980. Aldershot: Scolar P, 1994. 196-197. Print.Long Title
Shaving By SteamFeatured in Exhibit:
From the Collection:
Delineator:
Image Date:
1828
Publisher:
E. King