High life at five in the morning

description below

Print shows an interior view of a room; a duke has arrived home drunk at 5 a.m. (as shown on the longcase clock beside the door) accompanied by two attendants and watchman only to find his bedchamber occupied by another man. Through the open curtains around the bed can be seen a bare-breasted duchess. On the floor near the bed is an open book, “Memoirs of a woman of pleasure” (a reference to John Cleland’s Fanny Hill …) beside the chamber pot. As the duke with sword drawn, staggers forward, his rival climbs through a window in the background, leaving his clothes behind on a chair. A monkey dashes onto the table near the window on the heels of the husband’s rival but pulls down the tablecloth causing the items on the table to be strewn across the floor in the foreground; a book opened to pages “Chastity in the nobility a farce. Dedicated to their Graces the Duke & Dutchess xxx”, breaking a broken mirror, and sending the bottles and jars onto the floor. The bottles have labels “Viper drops” and “Surfeit water” and the jar is labeled “Lip salve”.

  • Title: High life at five in the morning [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : [publisher not identified], publish’d according to act of Parliament, May 1st, 1769.

Catalog Record

769.05.01.01+

Acquired February 2022

Die Entdeckung

description below

A German copy of Hogarth’s “The Discovery” (1743?): a scene in a bedoom where four gentlemen stand beside a curtained bed in which a black woman reclines; she reaches out to touch the chin of one of the men who has evidently just pulled back the curtain. The scene is thought to record a practical joke carried out on the lothario John Highmore by his friends: having arranged an assignation with an attractive young woman, they replaced her with a black prostitute. When he discovered the swap, on climbing into bed, they appeared from hiding. See Paulson.

  • Printmaker: Heintz, C. F., printmaker.
  • Title: Die Entdeckung [graphic] / lith. v. C. F. Heintz.
  • Publication: [Germany?] : [publisher not identified], [between 1833 and 1836]

Catalog Record

Hogarth 830.00.00.01 Box 140

Acquired January 2021

Dido in despair

Dido in despair. Detailed description below

“A parody of British Museum Satires No. 9752, Gillray’s ‘Dido in Despair!’ The Queen takes the place of Lady Hamilton, in a similar pose but tearing her long black hair with more of rage and less of grief. She wears a bracelet on each arm, one inscribed ‘BB’ (for Bergami), the other ‘MW’ (for Wood). On the floor are gifts to the Queen. Her bare right foot rests on a large cake inscribed ‘MW’ on which are various emblems: a large crown, which she kicks over, busts of Wood, Bergami, Lieut. Hownam, and an unidentified person; also a goat, an ass, and a cat. This stands on a paper: ‘Mr Trifle’s Love to the Q[ueen]’. A huge round of beef is ticketed ‘With Mr Suets Love to the Q–n’; with this is a roll of ‘Cat’s Meat’. A model of a pair of stays enclosed in a glass case stands on two papers: ‘Glass-blower’s Delight’ and ‘O stay my love my Cary dear’. A pair of breeches of metal is ‘For Bat [Bergami] or Cat ad libitum from the Brazier[s]’. Caricatures lie near a pair of slippers inscribed ‘BB’; the uppermost is of Bergami drinking at a table between Wood and the Queen. A book is ‘Catalogue of Fancy Men’. The glass on the dressing-table is topped by a crescent; on it hang miniatures of Bergami and Wood (cf. No. 13858). The table is covered with decanters, one labelled ‘Brandy’ [see British Museum Satires No. 14175], glass, pill-box, and boxes of ‘Rouge’, ‘Brick dust’, and ‘Court Plaister’. The curtains of the bed are fringed with gold and hang from a pelmet. In place of Gillray’s open sash-window is a closed French window; outside is a landscape, with two asses, and a lake (Como) with a sailing-boat.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Lane, Theodore, 1800-1828, printmaker.
  • Title: Dido in despair [graphic].
  • Publication: London : Pubd. by G. Humphrey, 27 St. James’s St., April 3rd, 1821.

Catalog Record 

821.04.03.01

Acquired March 2019

[Galvanism, or, The miraculous recovery of the unfortunate Miss Baily]

Galvanism. Detailed description below.

A young woman sits despairingly on the edge of a bed, with the end of a garter round her neck; the other end dangles from the bed-tester. She watches a servant holding a foppish, elderly naval officer by the collar as he flourishes a cudgel. At his feet lie a set of bellows. On the wall is a framed picture of Venus and Adonis with Cupid.

  • Artist: Cruikshank, George, 1792-1878, artist.
  • Title:[ Galvanism, or, The miraculous recovery of the unfortunate Miss Baily] [art original] / George Cruikshank.
  • Production: [England], [ca. 1807]

Catalog Record 

Drawings C889 no. 7 Box D115

Acquired March 2019

What a nice bit!

A large black woman, smiling in her sleep, lies in a bed surrounded by bedcurtains. She wears a cap and earrings, and her large breasts hang out over her nightclothes. A thin old, white man also in nightclothes and a night cap ogles her by the candlelight from the candlestick he holds in his right hand.

  • PrintmakerNewton, Richard, 1777-1798, printmaker.
  • TitleWhat a nice bit! [graphic] / R. Newton delin.
  • PublicationLondon : Pub. by W. Holland, Oxford St., July 8, 1796.

Catalog Record

796.07.08.01+

Acquired May 2017

French barracks


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A view of the interior of a busy French barracks shows a more domestic than military atmosphere although weapons and other gear adorn the walls and lay scattered on the floor. The scene includes a woman nursing a baby, children playing, woman doing washing.

Based on a watercolor by Rowlandson, in The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. (Drawings R79 no.13 Box D200)

  • Artist: Rowlandson, Thomas  1756-1827
  • Title: French barracks [graphic] / drawn & etchd by T. Rowlandson ; aquatinta by T. Malton.
  • Published: [London] : Publish’d Aug. 12, 1791, by S.W. Fores, N. 3 Piccadilly, [12 August 1791]

Catalog record & Digital collection

791.08.12.01++

Acquired November 2012