Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

---

Rhyparogrăphus

（ῥυπαρογράφος). A painter of low, coarse, obscene, and trivial subjects, among which are enumerated scenes of ordinary life, interiors of barbers' shops, cobblers' stalls, animals, and objects of still-life (Pliny , Pliny H. N. xxxv. 37), such as those for which the Dutch and Flemish schools have become celebrated. It is clear from the adjective which gives the governing sense to the term (ῥυπαρός, “foul,” “dirty”), that works of this description were held in low estimation by the talented and accomplished people of Greece; but the coarser-minded and more material Romans, whose love of art and taste was far less pure, being acquired or affected, not innate, set the highest value upon them, and bought them at prices oftentimes extravagant. See Pictura.