A bonnet shop [graphic]

"Large clusters of straw bonnets and hats hang from the ceiling of a room which is both show-room and work-room. A pretty shop-girl with a hat in each hand smiles at a lean ugly woman who wears a similar but ill-fitting hat, and whose complacent profile is reflected in a wall-mirror (left). A child with a rattle looks up at her. She (or he) wears frilled drawers to the ankle. A fat woman wearing a bonnet sits looking up admiringly. A cat sits on a chair. Behind, six pretty girls are seated at a table making bonnets. An ugly elderly man peers in through the window, using an eye-glass. On the wall is a large placard: 'Mrs Flimsy's Fashionable Warehouse The greatest Variety of Straw Hats & Bonnets made up in the most Elegant Taste. A large stock of Spanish Flemish Provincial Gipsey Cottage Woodland &c &c Adapted to shew every Feature to the best Advantage'. Below the title: 'Misery A La Mode. The being overpersuaded by a canting Shopwoman, in endeavouring to put off a stale Article-that it is the most becoming and suitable to your stile of Features-but on consulting your friends and acquaintance they pronounce it the most frightful hideous and unfashionable thing that woud disgrace Cranbourn Alley'."--British Museum online catalogue, description of an earlier state