ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the ways artists and writers depicted the countryside and the townscape, and why they chose to represent it as almost entirely devoid of shops. Their representations stand in contrast to commentators on the social and economic state of eighteenth-century England who mostly saw small shops as an uncomfortable and far too common reality. The dichotomy first came to our attention some years ago when looking for illustrations pertinent to an earlier work, The complete tradesman.1 This was primarily concerned with retailing outside London, so examples from the provinces seemed appropriate. What initially was assumed to be a simple task turned into a challenge, and it quickly became apparent that there was now a new question to answer: ‘Why were there so few illustrations of early-modern shops, particularly of those in the provinces?’
