Profile portrait depicting the young traveller Henry Bunbury wearing an academic gown and mortar board. This drawing was used as the basis for Thomas Patch’s conversation piece of the interior of his Florentine studio painted in 1770 and now in the collection of the Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington.
Drawings P294 no. 2 Box D205
Acquired September 2023
“Three grotesquely ugly old maids stoop delightedly over a Cupid who sleeps against a rose-bush, arrow in hand, his unstrung bow beside him. On the back of one sits an ape; a lap-dog is beside her. A parrot sits on the bonnet of another, the third kneels. On a mound (right) a cock stands crowing: ‘Cock a doodle doo.'”–British Museum online catalogue.
817.00.00.24+
Acquired September 2023
A manuscript in an unidentified hand, containing nine detailed leases given by John Houghton of Bramerton during the 1750s and 1760s, five with maps of the properties concerned, written in the same hand and dated 1756 to 1763. All of the maps were “copied 1764,” but each referencing earlier surveys done between 1728 and 1742.
At the back of the volume and turned over, written on the first four leaves in a different unidentified hand is a library catalog with the heading “Folio, a catalogue of 95 titles (104 volumes) on pages ruled with four columns. The number of the volume is recorded in the first column, the author’s last name and title or just the title in the second column, and the place and date of publication in the third and fourth column, respectively. Titles include literature, religion, geography, history, dictionaries, travel, and legal works, mostly in English or English translation but also several in French. There are also references to a manuscript journal.
LWL Mss Vol. 287
Acquired September 2023
A broadside illustrated with engraved head-and-shoulders portraits of Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold at top of sheet followed by 29 lines of letterpress text mourning the death of the Charlotte on November 6th, 1817.
File 56 C47 817B
Acquired July 2023
“A farmyard scene, with a corner of the house on the left. A grossly fat and carbuncled parson on a quest for tithes encounters the farmer’s wife, who runs towards him proffering an open bandbox, with a dangling lid inscribed 10th. A miniature hussar, very dandified in shako and pelisse, stands in it, superciliously inspecting the parson through an eye-glass. The woman, who is plump and well-dressed, wearing apron and bonnet, says: Seeing your Reverence comeing for your Tithes, I have brought you a Tenth. The parson, who holds a large book, Tithe list, and has a chicken in his capacious pocket, answers with a scowl and gesture of refusal: Take it back! take it back! good Woman; I never tithe Monkeys. The little hussar says: Eh! eh! what does that there fellow say? An amused yokel with a pitchfork leans over a gate (left). A cock crows on a dunghill, an ass brays. Corn-sheaves stand in a distant field.”–British Museum online catalogue.
824.04.10.01+
Acquired January 2022
“Heading to a broadside printed in two columns. The King, a bloated and whiskered infant, sleeps in a cradle, rocked by Sidmouth (right), a lean old woman wearing a cap and bag-wig, who sits in a rocking-chair, his clyster-pipe (cf. British Museum Satires No. 9849) on the ground. The cradle is surmounted by a pagoda with bells, and ornamented by two large crocodiles, representing the Chinese dragons of the Pavilion, cf. British Museum Satires No. 12749. On it are also a sun, with a fool’s cap in its disk, between crescent moons. Round the cradle lie toys: soldiers, mounted lancers, &c., on wheels, a cannon, a sceptre, a crown with a toy windmill stuck in it. With these are papers: ‘Divorce’; ‘Protocal’ [sic]; ‘Send her to Hell’. The infant holds a coral and bells and a corkscrew. Castlereagh sits over the fire warming a napkin. Canning (see British Museum Satires No. 13737) walks off to the left, disgustedly carrying the pan of a commode decorated with a crown and ‘G.R.’ On the chimneypiece are pap-boat, bottle of ‘Dolby’s Carminative, &c’. (Dolby was a radical bookseller, ‘Dalby’s carminative’ a well-known remedy for infants). A large ‘Green Bag’ hangs on the wall. In a doorway behind Sidmouth, inscribed ‘French Dolls’, stand two young women, in evening dress, stiff and impassive.”–British Museum online catalogue.
820.07.00.01
Acquired November 2021
Folio 75 St787 825
Acquired November 2020
Christopher Columbus demonstrating how to make an egg stand on its end. The five observers look at the cracked egg, upright on the table, in amusement at the evidence of an inventive mind at work. Two other eggs intertwined with two eels lie on a plate in the center of the table. A dog peeps over the edge of the table in the foreground; the cutlery is pushed off to one side.
812.00.00.112
Acquired September 2019
Eleven views in three rows, arranged around a larger central image of “A view of the island of St. Helena”; the ten smaller views, four in the top row, two in the middle row, and four in the third row, show images of various boats, ships and other sailing vessels on the sea.
812.00.00.123
Acquired September 2019
“John Bull, blindfold, stands on a massive truncated pillar holding the beam of a pair of scales. In one scale (left), near the ground, Mrs. Clarke sits composedly among a mass of papers, holding one inscribed My dear Dearest Dearest Darling [see British Museum satires no. 11228, &c.]. The others are inscribed: Sandon, Toyne [Tonyn], Dowler, Omeara, Carter, French, Knight, Clavering. In the other scale the Duke of York swings high in the air, and shouts down to three men on the ground: Save me save me Save my Honour [cf. British Museum satires no. 11269]. They haul hard at ropes attached to his scale, which they tilt sideways so that he is in danger of falling out. One, a drink-blotched bishop wearing a mitre, says: Pull away Pull away the Church is in danger; the other two say: Pull away Pull away we lose all our Places, and Pull away pull away we shall lose our Noble Commander. On the pillar Britannia is depicted seated with her shield and lion; she holds the broken staff of a flag.”–British Museum online catalogue.
809.04.22.02+
Acquired September 2019