Margaret Finch Queen of the Gypsies at Norwood.
Drawn from the Life by Ino. Straeke 1739. Engrav'd by Hen. Roberts 1742.
Engraving. 240 x 230mm. Trimmed inside plate mark along bottom edge. Stuck on scrap sheet.
The Norwood gypsies lived in the area now known as Gypsy Hill. So famous were they that a pantomime called 'The Norwood Gypsies' was staged in Covent Garden in 1777. The most famous of the gypsies was Margaret Finch [d.1740]. A report published a few years after her death states that the 'oddness of her figure and ye fame of her fortune-telling drew a vast concourse of spectators from ye highest rank of quality, even to those of ye lower class of life'. She lived in a conical hut built of branches, at the base of an ancient tree, and it was there that great numbers of people visited her.
[Ref: 5760] £160.00
Engraving. 240 x 230mm. Trimmed inside plate mark along bottom edge. Stuck on scrap sheet.
The Norwood gypsies lived in the area now known as Gypsy Hill. So famous were they that a pantomime called 'The Norwood Gypsies' was staged in Covent Garden in 1777. The most famous of the gypsies was Margaret Finch [d.1740]. A report published a few years after her death states that the 'oddness of her figure and ye fame of her fortune-telling drew a vast concourse of spectators from ye highest rank of quality, even to those of ye lower class of life'. She lived in a conical hut built of branches, at the base of an ancient tree, and it was there that great numbers of people visited her.
[Ref: 5760] £160.00