Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Rhyparographus

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

RHYPAROG'RAPHUS (ῥυπαρογράφος). A painter of low, coarse, and trivial subjects, amongst which are enumerated scenes of ordinary life, interiors of barbers' shops, cobblers' stalls, animals, and objects of still life (Plin. H. N. xxxv. 37.), such as those for which the Dutch and Flemish schools have become celebrated. It is evident 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, were far less pure, being acquired or affected, not innate, set the highest value upon them, and bought them at prices oftentimes exceeding what they paid for the great works of the best masters. Plin. l. c.