A small print depicting a scene from Homer’s Odyssey as he sails back to his home in Ithaca: Two Laestrygonian, who are giants, one who upends one Odysseus’s ships as other eats one of the men as the fail into the sea. The high cliffs of Lamos is in the distance on the right.
800.00.00.105
Acquired November 2020
646 796 B792
Acquired August 2020
63 803 H675En
Acquired April 2020
“Social satire; Pitt the Younger portrayed as a monkey, with regalia and his crown hanging on a chain around his neck, in a field labelled “Windsor Park”; below the image a text explains that this animal is confounding naturalists, who suppose it to be an offspring of the devil.”–British Museum online catalogue.
795.07.02.02+
Acquired November 2020
“John Bull, a fat ‘cit’, is seated beside a writing-table (right) holding up a large book. On the left hand page is inscribed ‘Vote of Thanks respecting the Expedition to Copenhagen’; John’s pen rests on the last word, but he turns in horror to gaze at the ghosts of (left to right) Fox, Pitt, and Burke. These wear shrouds and stand on clouds; all point a menacing forefinger. Fox says: “Erase those lines from your Journal”; Pitt and Burke say “Erase”. Burke wears spectacles and a Jesuit’s biretta (cf. British Museum Satires No. 6026), and holds a large book inscribed ‘Sublime & Beautiful’ [cf., e.g., British Museum Satires No. 6361]. John wears glasses, his hair rises on his head, pushing up his ill-fitting wig. He says: “Why dont you come then and transact the business yourselves? – it is impossible I can please every body. – it is come to such a pitch now that I have no peace either with the living or the dead!!!””–British Museum online catalogue.
808.02.23.01+
Acquired November 2020
53 W572 799
Acquired July 2020
The image at top shows an old man sitting in an armchair on the right, his gouty foot resting on a footstool, a crutch seen leaning against a stool beside him. He looks up at a younger woman on the left, who wears a bonnet and apron and is looking down and away from him. Draperies and a framed picture of Cupid shooting an arrow decorate the wall behind them. The text below, in two columns with an age listed at the beginning of each line, tells the humorous tale of the consequences of a man putting off marriage for prideful reasons from age “16 – incipient palpitations towards the young ladies”, through the ages of “29 – rails against the fair sex”, “37 – indulge in every kind of dissipation”, and “48 – thinks living alone quite irksome …”. Eventually, he resolves to have a prudent young woman as housekeeper and companion, gradually feeling some attachment to her and becoming completely under her influence. At age 60, as he begins to feel ill, and “grows rapidly worse, has his will made in her favour, and makes an exit.”
809.00.00.64
Acquired March 2020
61 P416
Acquired December 2020
Ferdinand VII, seated on a throne on a low platform inscribed “TIRANIA”, is flanked by two advisers, the Devil on the left and a friar on the right. At the friar’s feet, in the foreground, a demon burns newspapers with a firebrand. Tortures of the Inquisition are seen in the background.
818.11.00.01+
Acquired March 2020
A medley print with images showing, from top left: an illuminated manuscript in gothic script with decorated capital letters with florishes in red and blue ink; a print showing a naval battle with burning ships, possibly depicting the defeat of Baron de Pointis’ fleet in the Bay of Gibraltar, 20 March 1705; a bust portrait, possibly of Simón Susarte, the goatherder, wearing a turban and facing left, in profile, who helped the Bourbon Spanish in a sneak attack on Gibraltar during the Twelfth Siege of Gibraltar in 1704. Below, a second row, beginning with a print referencing the Battle of Ramillies, showing a man on horseback with his sword drawn looking down at an opponent whose head has been blasted off by a cannon ball, with the caption “May 23 NS 1706. 6000 prisoners. 8000 kill’d. Standards a great number”; covering a portion of the naval battle print above and forming the background of most of the medley, an image of a newspaper The Post Boy from Thu[…] 1706 with two woodcuts in the header, mostly obscured by another print, hand-colored, with an the image of an English grenadier, shown full-length standing, holding a musket. A third level, from the left, a playing card showing the ten(?) of hearts shown behind an image of a newspaper; on top of the newspaper a half-length portrait of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (after Kneller) in armor; on the far right on the same level as the playing card behind the newspaper, a numbered playing card (possibly the seven of spades), covered by an image of a military insignia(?). On the bottom level lower left, a print, after the painting Battle of Blenheim by John Wootton, showing the Battle of Blenheim identified as “Hostetten” (left) and Blenheim (right) with calvary charging into the Danube and a commander on a horse rearing, hoofs raised, in the left foreground. In the lower right, a sheet with the title of the medley, artist statement, and imprint.
706.00.00.02+
Acquired May 2020