Amorous Encounters in the Satirical Print Culture of the Eighteenth-Century London Masquerade

Abstract

Masquerades dominated the culture of polite urban entertainment in eighteenth-century England, summoning London’s bon ton to engage in dancing, dining, role-playing, and conversation while in disguise. The anonymity and enticement provided by masks and costumes turned the masquerade into a frequent narrative frame for the depiction of amorous encounters and assignations in Georgian literary and visual culture, especially in relation to women’s behavior, morality, and presence in the public sphere during the nascent cult of sensibility. Satirical prints, widely consumed at this time, found this topic a particularly appealing one for the Georgian public’s taste, denouncing and disseminating masquerade’s moral perils for women. This article explores amorous encounters associated with the space of the masquerade as represented in Georgian print culture and how such visual narratives employed the figure of the female masquerader to define models of respectable or deviant femininity.