The discovery in Australia of an album of hitherto unknown drawings by Hugh Douglas Hamilton (1740-1808) caused a sensation in Irish historical and art historical circles. The album is unique in eighteenth-century Irish art in its realistic depiction of the most humble citizens of Dublin, the hawkers who made their living on the streets of the capital. Almost entirely ignored in the art of the period, the urban poor are here depicted going about their daily lives. The album provides a panorama of eighteenth-century Dublin – beggars, tricksters, hawkers of fish, wigs and brogues.

The volume published these drawings for the first time and includes essays by an international team of scholars exploring the images from historical, economic, stylistic and iconographical perspectives.