Tag Archives: Watercolors

The history and antiquities of the county of Essex

Posted on by
Reply

printed text

Extra-illustrated and expanded to 5 volumes, each volume with an added printed title page dated 1908 and bound in early 20th-century red crushed levant full morocco gilt

  • Author: Morant, Philip, 1700-1770.
  • Title: The history and antiquities of the county of Essex : compiled from the best and most ancient historians, from Domesday-book, Inquisitiones post mortem, and other the most valuable records and mss. &c. / the whole digested, improved, perfected, and brought down to the present time, by Philip Morant ; illustrated with copper plates.
  • Published: London : Printed for T. Osborne …, J. Whiston …, S. Baker …, L. Davis and C. Reymers … and B. White …, 1768.

Catalog Record

Folio 64 Es75 768

Acquired September 2023

They took her away

Posted on by
Reply

description below

A young woman presumably a prostitute, bare breasted and with a dejected look on her face, is being led up the steps of a building by a beadle or constable, her head bowed in shame. Her infant has been left in the arms of an older woman, stands at the base of the stairs on the right. Another, older child, seated on a lower step in the foreground, looks up at the scene. The building has barred windows.

  • Artist: Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827, artist.
  • Title: [They took her away] [art original] / T. Rowlandson.
  • Production: [England], [late 18th century?]

Catalog Record

Drawings R79 no. 23 Box D207

Acquired June 2023

Human nature is fond of novelty

Posted on by
Reply

description below

An old officer in uniform with a wrinkled face and carbuncles looks lustfully at a pretty young woman as they walk together on a path, his hand grasping hers.

  • Artist: Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827, artist.
  • Title: Human nature is fond of novelty – Pliny [art original].
  • Production: [England], [late 18th century?]

Catalog Record

Drawings R79 no. 24 Box D146

Acquired June 2023

Changing horses at Clermont

Posted on by
Reply

description below

A single-horse carriage is stopped in front of a rustic inn or roadhouse, with two caricatured Frenchmen (one a postillion wearing enormous boots) engaged in changing out the horse. An occupant of the carriage hands money out the window to a peasant woman holding an infant and accompanied by a young boy; two other shabbily dressed figures are nearby next to a tree, one of them playing a makeshift drum. In the doorway of the building stands a young woman, and to the left a man under an archway stands with arms crossed; both watch the scene unfold. In the background a postilion rides away on horseback, whip extended into the air.

  • Artist: Byron, Frederick George, 1764-1792, artist.
  • Title: [Changing horses at Clermont] [art original] / F.G. Byron.
  • Production: [France], [1790]

Catalog Record

Drawer Drawings B995 no. 1

Acquired June 2023

Portrait of Mary Anne Clarke

Posted on by
Reply

description below

Full-length portrait of a woman, likely to be Mary Anne Clarke, wearing a white neoclassical dress and standing on a balcony with a curtain drapped from the left corner.

 

  • Artist: Buck, Adam, 1759-1833, artist.
  • Title: [Portrait of Mary Anne Clarke] [art original] / Adam Buck.
  • Production: London, 1804.

Catalog Record

Drawings B922 no. 1

Acquired November 2022

Gentleman escorting a young woman to a waiting carriage

Posted on by
Reply

description below

A gentleman leads a young woman and her mother (or chaperone) to the door of a carriage, held open by the coach driver who wears a top hat and a peculiar grin. In the background is a house or inn with a partially drawn figure (in ink) watching or emerging from the door. On the verso, pencil sketches of two men in top hats, and a smaller figure lightly sketched with a top hat in black ink.

 

  • Creator: Cruikshank, George, 1792-1878, artist.
  • Title: [Gentleman escorting a young woman to a waiting carriage] [art original] / Geo. Cruikshank.
  • Production: [England], [1830s?]

Catalog Record

Drawings C889 no. 9 Box D115

Acquired November 2022

Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow

Posted on by
Reply

printed text

watercolor of tall ships on the water

  • Author: Ludlow, Edmund, 1617?-1692.
  • Title: Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow : with a collection of original papers, and the case of King Charles the First.
  • Published: London : Printed for T. Becket and P.A. DeHondt, and T. Cadell, in the Strand; and T. Evans, in King Street, Covent Garden, MDCCLXXI [1771]

Catalog Record

Quarto 63 771 L945

Acquired April 2023

Designs for Georgian playing cards

Posted on by
Reply

description below

Three playing cards, or transformation cards, drawn in pen and ink by an unidentified artist, showing caricatured figures using the shape of the pip, only hearts or diamonds (red watercolor) in this incomplete set. One of the cards (two hearts) features two gentlemen meeting. The other two cards (three of diamonds) feature a lady with a fan and two gentleman in one card; the other incomplete, has a lady with a fan and only one gentleman.

 

  • Title: [Designs for Georgian playing cards] [art original].
  • Production: [England], [between 1800 and 1820?]

Catalog Record

Drawings Un58 no. 96

Acquired August 2022

Soldier with an arrow in his chest

Posted on by
Reply

description below

A soldier, possibly from the English Civil War, looks with shock towards an arrow embedded in his chest. He sits, surrounded by foliage, holding a dagger in his right hand.

 

  • Creator: Bunbury, Henry William, 1750-1811, artist.
  • Title: [Soldier with an arrow in his chest] [art original].
  • Production: [England], [1780s?]

Catalog Record

Drawer Drawings B87 no. 31

Acquired November 2022

The one-eyed husband, or, The wife’s dream

Posted on by
Reply

description below

A scene in a chamber with the end of canopy bed visible in the background, left. A woman in her undergarments, a candlestick in the foreground positioned suggestively between her legs, reaches out to cover her husband’s one good eye as he walks through the front door; behind her, her lover escapes undetected with his clothes over his arm. Outside, through the open door, a servant can be seen leading a horse, with a barn across the yard. To the right of the door, a chamber pot sits on a ladder-back chair with a hat and a fiddle hanging off pegs on the wall above.

 

  • Creator: Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827, artist.
  • Title: [The one-eyed husband, or, The wife’s dream] [art original] / T. Rowlandson.
  • Production: [England], [late 18th century?]

Catalog Record

Drawings R79 no. 21 Box D207

Acquired November 2022