The Rat Catcher

The Rat Catcher depicts a popular genre subject that allowed Maclise to combine his figure-painting skills with the kind of narrative specificity that Victorian exhibition audiences appreciated. Rat-catchers were occupational types whose practical role in urban and rural pest control was familiar to all classes while their working-class character provided material for the genre tradition's documentation of social types. Maclise's approach to such subjects brought his considerable draftsmanship to bear on costume, equipment, and physiognomy, creating images that combined social observation with technical demonstration. The subject also carried comic and narrative potential — the rat-catcher's relationship with his quarry providing inherent dramatic interest.

The figure is rendered with Maclise's strong draftsmanship and eye for characterful detail, the tools and accoutrements of the rat-catching trade depicted with the precise observation of a natural storyteller.