A phantasmagoria, or, A review of old times

see description below

“A magician stands full face with uplifted sabre held over the heads of two figures from the past whom he has called up, and who stand within a magic circle. He displays them to their modern descendants, a tall stout Frenchman plainly dressed, wearing cocked hat and military boots, who stands with his arm on the shoulder of a thin, wretched, shambling, Englishman, small, ugly, and foppish, his hand thrust through an empty pocket. The magician has a beard, but features, cocked hat, consular dress, and sabre indicate Napoleon. He asks: “Are you satisfied Gentlemen?” The apparitions (left) are a grossly obese Englishman in old-fashioned dress, a cane hanging from his right wrist, and an ugly, tall, cadaverous, and foppish Frenchman holding a snuffbox. They say, respectively: “Is that my Grandson Jack? what a skeleton!!!”; “Ah mon Cousin, vat you eat de Beef & Plum Pudding!!” Their surprised successors exclaim: “Bless me! why I am a mere Stump of a man to him!!! and viable my Cousin look like de Frog & John Bull look like de Ox but Grace a Dieu times are Changed!!” Beside the magician are symbols of his art: a globe, a crocodile, a scroll, a skull. Within the circle and beside the French apparition is a frog.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Cruikshank, Isaac, 1756?-1811?, printmaker.
  • Title: A phantasmagoria, or, A review of old times [graphic] / I. Ck.
  • Publication: London : Pub. by T. Williamson, N. 20 Strand, London, March 9th, 1803.

Catalog Record

803.03.09.01+

Acquired March 2021

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