Portrait, three-quarter length, sitting facing front, right elbow resting on a table, left hand holding a rabbit in her lap, wearing plain clothes, an apron, knotted scarf around her neck and small white cap, looking away to left; after Laguerre.
810.01.01.01
Acquired January 2021
“A companion plate to British Museum Satires no. 14103. Alderman Wood takes the Queen’s left arm, staring down at her and grinning. He wears a top-hat on the back of his head, black tail-coat with trousers; his left hand is thrust under the buttons of his double-breasted coat. He wears an order and a star on which the Queen’s head is depicted (see British Museum Satires no. 13810). From her neck hang twin miniatures: Bergami and Wood. Her dress is a modified version of that in British Museum Satires no. 14103: between open over-dress and Turkish trousers is a frilled petticoat reaching well below the knee; her feathered hat resembles that worn at her ‘trial’. They stand in a wooded landscape with goats and rabbits in the middle distance. In the background, on the edge of a lake, is the tiny figure of Bergami, both arms raised.”–British Museum online catalogue.
821.01.19.01 Impression 2
Acquired March 2019
Print with twelve panels relating to the affair of Mary Toft, “the rabbit breeder”: from top left, she is held aloft by two men and a Harlequin or Merry Andrew, she has a rabbit in either hand; she pursues a rabbit while working in a field; she dreams of being impregnated by rabbit, Cupid is shown on a cloud beside her bed holding a rabbit in either hand; she is seated in a chair attended by two women while the two men and Harlequin discuss the monstrous birth; Harlequin demonstrates that he can express milk from her breast; Harlequin feels “the rabbets leapin in her belly” while two men look on; she sits on the edge of a bed and Harlequin kneels to seize a rabbit that emerges from her skirts while a doctor raises his hands in surprise, wishing to anatomize the animal; Harlequin stands behind a table holding a balance in which he weighs dung removed from the rabbit explaining to two men that this will allow him to judge whether the animal had “breath’d in air”; doctors and midwives discuss the phenomenon around a table and Harlequin enters claiming that the birth must be “praeternatural”; a crowd of gentlemen are welcomed to the bagnio in Leicester Square where Toft is housed; two men spy from the door to Toft’s room as another hands her a dead rabbit; Toft, weeping, is led away to Bridewell by two constables while Harlequin “sits upon Repenting stool, Cursing his fate in being made a Fool. See British Museum online catalogue.
726.00.00.26+
Acquired September 2018
“A companion plate to British Museum Satires no. 14103. Alderman Wood takes the Queen’s left arm, staring down at her and grinning. He wears a top-hat on the back of his head, black tail-coat with trousers; his left hand is thrust under the buttons of his double-breasted coat. He wears an order and a star on which the Queen’s head is depicted (see British Museum Satires no. 13810). From her neck hang twin miniatures: Bergami and Wood. Her dress is a modified version of that in British Museum Satires no. 14103: between open over-dress and Turkish trousers is a frilled petticoat reaching well below the knee; her feathered hat resembles that worn at her ‘trial’. They stand in a wooded landscape with goats and rabbits in the middle distance. In the background, on the edge of a lake, is the tiny figure of Bergami, both arms raised.”–British Museum online catalogue.
821.01.19.01
Acquired March 2017