Two heads better than one

Posted on February 7, 2020 by km55

“A pretty and elegant young woman kneels on a bed supporting her elbows on the pillow. A woman stands beside her raising the girl’s skirt in order to birch her, but finds her posterior covered by a life-sized mask which is a close portrait of herself. She says: “Oh ma foi! dot is mine own Head in t’oder place.””–British Museum online catalogue.

Printmaker: Williams, Charles, active 1797-1830, printmaker.
Title: Two heads better than one, or, The governess outwitted [graphic].
Publication: [London] : Pubd. Jany. 1817 by S.W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly, [January 1817]

Catalog Record

817.01.00.03+

Acquired April 2019

Political billiards

Posted on February 5, 2020 by km55

“European sovereigns (wearing crowns) and others, watch a game of billiards between the Tsar, the principal figure, and the Sultan.

Printmaker: Heath, William, 1795-1840, printmaker.
Title: Political billiards [graphic] / William Heath.
Publication: [London] : Pub. Sep. 30, 1829, by T. McLean, 26 Haymarket …, [30 September 1829]

Catalog Record

820.09.30.01+

Acquired April 2019

Tabular details of a journey from Geneva to Florence

Posted on January 31, 2020 by km55

An account detailing posts and times for each section of the journey, with notes on inns, conditions of roads, places of note and numerous personal observations; quality of gardens, vegetations and art, the prevalence of goitres in one particular area, the need to obtain the correct paperwork to avoid one’s baggage being rummaged through, and the need to have luggage “plumbed” upon departure from Florence. Clearly written in the hand of Thomas Martyn, this particular tour can be found mentioned in Martyn’s entry in DNB: starting in 1778 he was accompanying his young charge, Edward Hartopp, on his two year continental tour, part of which was later published and made it into his “Gentleman’s Guide in his Tour Through Italy” in 1787 and “Sketch of a Tour Through Switzerland” of the same year.

Author: Martyn, Thomas, 1735-1825.
Title: Tabular details of a journey from Geneva to Florence : manuscript.
Production: Switzerland and Italy, 1779.

Catalog Record

LWL Mss File 149

Acquired April 2019

[Don Quixote seizes the barber’s bason for Mambrino’s helmet]

Posted on January 29, 2020 by km55

Don Quixote attacks the barber, lance in hand. The barber cowers on the ground beside his horse, his shaving bowl at his feet.

Printmaker: Hogarth, William, 1697-1764, printmaker, artist.
Title: [Don Quixote seizes the barber’s bason for Mambrino’s helmet] [graphic] / W. Hogarth invent. et scupt.
Edition: [State 2].
Publication: [London] : [Robert Dodsley?], [not before 1756]

Catalog Record

Hogarth 756.00.00.01 Box 110

Acquired April 2019

The Princes disastar

Posted on January 15, 2020 by km55

“The Prince of Wales falls from an overturning phaeton or curricle. He is about to fall on the prostrate body of Mrs. Fitzherbert (left), who lies on her back, her breasts exposed, in an attitude intended to be indecorous. She lies under a steep bank or rock beside a country road. The horse rears behind the Prince.”–British Museum online catalogue.

Title: The Princes disastar [sic], or, A fall in Fitz [graphic].
Publication: [London] : Published by James Aitken, Little Russell Court, Drury Lane, [July 1788]

Catalog Record

788.07.00.08+

Acquired April 2019

Enthusiasm displayed

Posted on January 9, 2020 by km55

A Methodist preacher preaching to an open-air congregation with a cloth in one hand, two women preparing to steal a pair of shoes in the midst of the crowd, various people looking on including an apple seller with a cart, two Jews, fashionable ladies and gentlemen, and a group of boys with a guy formed of a chimney brush, an inn to the right and the Palladian facade of St. Luke’s Hospital beyond.

Printmaker: Pranker, Robert, printmaker.
Title: Enthusiasm displayed [graphic] / John Griffiths pinxit ; Robt. Pranker sculpt.
Publication: [London] : Published according to act of Parliament, & sold by the proprietor John Griffiths, Chief Porter of the Middle Temple, opposite the General Post Office, Middle Temple Lane, & the print shops &c., [1765]

Catalog Record

765.00.00.93++

Acquired April 2019

Coelum ipsum petimus stultitia

Posted on January 8, 2020 by km55

“A companion print to British Museum Satires Nos. 6700, 6701, 6703. An enormous balloon not completely inflated rests on a platform suspended between two masts; it is exploding, flames and thick clouds of smoke pour from a crease in its contour, a number of men with faggots on their backs run from the balloon, others are on the platform, which is covered by a large cloth or net which hangs in folds. In the air (left), as if having sprung from the exploding part of the balloon, is a small balloon in the form of a head, identical with that in British Museum Satires No. 6704, with the same inscription and passenger. From it streams, in place of a rope, the tail of a kite. This evidently represents the bursting of Keegan’s balloon in the garden of Foley House. “–British Museum online catalogue.

Printmaker: Sandby, Paul, 1731-1809, printmaker.
Title: Coelum ipsum petimus stultitia [graphic].
Publication: [London?] : [publisher not identified], [1784]

Catalog Record

784.00.00.79+

Acquired April 2019

Refreshment at St. Giles’s

Posted on November 27, 2019 by km55

“Three women and a man stand drinking gin in an interior in St Giles’s, London; the woman on the left grabs a bottle from a shelf, to her right a woman holds up a gin cup; the man stands behind the three women leaning against a clock and a fireplace.”–British Museum online catalogue.

Printmaker: Stubbs, George Townly, -1815?, printmaker.
Title: Refreshment at St. Giles’s [graphic] / Chas. Ansell delt. ; Geo. Townly Stubbs sculp.
Publication: London : Publish’d June 1st, 1789, by G.T. Stubbs, No. 2 Compton Street, Soho, [1 June 1789]

Catalog Record

789.06.01.03+

Acquired April 2019

The egg, or, The memoirs of Gregory Giddy, Esq.

Posted on November 8, 2019 by km55

Fictitious memoir.

Title: The egg, or, The memoirs of Gregory Giddy, Esq. : with the lucubrations of Messrs. Francis Flimsy, Frederic Florid, and Ben Bombast … Also the Memoirs of a Right Honourable Puppy, or, The Bon Ton display’d … / conceived by a Celebrated Hen, and laid before the public by a Famous Cock-feeder.
Published: London : Printed for S. Smith, in Pater-Noster-Row, and sold by all other booksellers in town and country, [1772]

Catalog Record

53 Eg29 772

Acquired April 2019

At a court of emergency of the Hon. Artillery-Company…

Posted on October 31, 2019 by km55

Author: Great Britain. Army. Honourable Artillery Company of London. Court of Emergency.
Uniform Title: [Regulations. 1794-08-21]
Title: At a court of emergency of the Hon. Artillery-Company, held at the Mansion-House, on Thursday, August 21, 1794, at three o’clock in the morning: on a requisition from the Right Hon. the Lord-Mayor, for the purpose of assisting the civil power, resolved, that the Company do appear completely armed and accoutred, with two spare flints, in the artillery-ground this evening, at five o’clock precisely, and that every member be required to assign substantial reason for absence. By order of the said Court of Assistants, William White, clerk.
Publication: [London] : [publisher not identified] [1794]

Catalog Record

File 63 794 At861

Acquired April 2019

Recent Antiquarian Acquisitions

The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Tag Archives: Lewis Walpole Library April 2019

Two heads better than one

Political billiards

Tabular details of a journey from Geneva to Florence

[Don Quixote seizes the barber’s bason for Mambrino’s helmet]

The Princes disastar

Enthusiasm displayed

Coelum ipsum petimus stultitia

Refreshment at St. Giles’s

The egg, or, The memoirs of Gregory Giddy, Esq.

At a court of emergency of the Hon. Artillery-Company…

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