Tag Archives: Caricatures

All among the Hottentots – capering a shore

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King William IV dressed as a sailor dances in the centre of a semicircle of ministers who have black bodies and are partially draped. Among the ministers are Peel and Scarlett on the left, Lyndhurst and Wellington on the right both of whom wear nose-rings. Scarlett encircles Ellenborough, who, with Sugden, is behind the King. Their tribal dance celebration alludes to the relief that the ministers must have felt to be able to retain their positions with the new reign. William IV was a popular King and a stark contrast to George IV and was liable to wild bursts of passion as is suggested here. He and the Duke of Wellington (then prime minister) got on very well, hence the retainment of his ministers. He is dressed in sailor garb in reference to his years in the navy. The tribal dress of the ministers refers to the far-flung shores that William visited.

  • Printmaker: Heath, William, 1795-1840, printmaker.
  • Title: All among the Hottentots – capering a shore [graphic] / W. Heath.
  • Publication: [London] : Pub. July 19, 1830, by T. McLean, 26 Haymarket, [19 July 1830]

Catalog Record

830.07.19.01+

Acquired May 2023

A new Chancery suit removed to the Scotch bar

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Print shows a Gretna Green marriage in an open-fronted smithy. Erskine, disguised in woman’s dress with a huge feathered bonnet over a barrister’s wig, holds the right hand of a demure-looking woman, modishly dressed and apparently pregnant. He holds a paper: ‘Breach of Promise’. With them are three young children. The smith wears Highland dress; he holds a red-hot bar on the anvil and raises his hammer, saying, “I shall make a good thing of this Piece at last.” Erskine says: “I have bother’d the Courts in London many times, I’ll now try my hand at the Scotch Bar–as to Miss C– she may do her worst since I have got my Letters back.” The woman says: “Now who dare say, Blacks the White of my Eye.” In the background (right) a young woman rushes down a slope towards the smithy, shouting, “Oh Stop Stop Stop, false Man, I will yet seek redress tho you have got back your letters–” Beside her is a sign-post pointing ‘To Gretna Green’. A little boy with Erskine’s features, wearing tartan trousers, stands on tip-toe to watch the smith; on the ground beside him is a toy (or emblem), a cock on a pair of breeches. A little girl stands by her mother nursing a doll fashionably dressed as a woman, but with Erskine’s profile. Another boy with a toy horse on a string stands in back view watching ‘Miss C’. Behind the smith is the furnace; on the wall hang many rings: ‘Rings to fit all Hands.’

 

  • Printmaker: Cruikshank, Robert, 1789-1856, printmaker.
  • Title: A new Chancery suit removed to the Scotch bar, or, More legitimates [graphic] / I.R.C. fecit.
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. Feby. 4th, 1819, by S.W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly & 312 Oxford Street, [4 February 1819]

Catalog record

819.02.04.01+

Acquired November 2022

After the invasion

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“Three volunteers or militiamen, three-quarter length figures, exult at the head of Bonaparte which one of them (right) holds up on a pitchfork, saying, “Here he is Exalted my Lads 24 Hours after Landing.” The head is in profile to the left, the sharp well-cut features contrast with those of the chubby yokels. The centre figure, holding out his hat, says, turning to the left: “Why Harkee, d’ye zee, I never liked Soldiering afore, but some how or other when I though [sic] of our Sal the bearns, the poor pigs, the Cows and the Geese, why I could have killed the whole Army my own Self.” He wears a smock with the crossed straps of a cartouche-box. The third man (left) in regimentals, but round-shouldered and unsoldierly, says: “Dang my Buttons if that beant the Head of that Rogue Boney – I told our Squire this Morning, what do you think say’s I the Lads of our Village can’t cut up a Regiment of them French Mounsheers, and as soon as the Lasses had given us a Kiss for good luck I could have sworn we should do it and so we have.” All three have hats turned up with favours and oak-twigs, the favours being inscribed respectively (left to right): ‘Hearts of Oak’; ‘Britons never will be Slaves’, and ‘We’ll fight and We’ll Conquer again and again’. In the spaces between these foreground figures is seen a distant encounter between English horse and foot and French invaders, who are being driven into the sea, on which are flat-bottomed boats, all on a very small scale. Two women search French corpses; one says: “why this is poor finding I have emtied the pocketts of a score and only found one head of garlic 9 onions & a parcel of pill Boxes.” Cf. British Museum Satires No. 8145.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Williams, Charles, active 1797-1830, printmaker.
  • Title: After the invasion [graphic] : the levée en masse, or, Britons strike home.
  • Publication: [London] : Pub. Augt. 6th, 1803, by S.W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly, [6 August 1803]

Catalog Record

802.08.06.01+

Acquired April 2023

London sportsmen finding a hare

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A satire on London hunters: A hare crouching in long grass beside an old tree at left while a young man runs forward dragging his gun, and holding out his hat to throw it over the animal. Two dogs follow behind him and a second man squats down with his gun to watch.

 

  • Title: London sportsmen finding a hare [graphic].
  • Publication: [Alnwick] : Printed and published by W. Davison, Alnwick, [between 1812 and 1817]

Catalog Record

812.00.00.128

Acquired August 2022

Always a character

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A caricatured portrait of comedian John Liston, standing before the Theatre Royal. Leaning against a bollard is a placard advertising the play ‘Fish out of Water’ in which he was starring as ‘Sam Savoury’.

  • Printmaker: Ash, William, active 1823, printmaker, artist.
  • Title: Always a character [graphic] / Wm. Ash invt. & fet.
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. Novr. 25th, 1823, by G. Humphrey, 24, St. James’s St. & 74, New-Bond St., London, [25 November 1823]

Catalog Record

823.11.25.01

Acquired April 2023

A devil rolled in snow

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A grotesque racist caricature of a buxom black woman in a white dress decorated with flowers and a bonnet with ribbons, grinning at the viewer and saying ‘Don’t you think you Fancy me now Massa’. Probably inspired by the “High Life in Philadelphia” series by Edward Williams Clay between 1828 and 1830 mocking supposed racial differences and modeled after George and Robert Cruikshank’s Life in London.

  • Title: A devil rolled in snow [graphic] / [image of a hand] fecit.
  • Publication: [London?] : [publisher not identified], [ca. 1830?]

Catalog Record

830.00.00.163

Acquired February 2022

Collection of pictorial conundrum cards

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collection of hand colored playing cardsA collection of pictorial conundrum cards from various unidentified sets of cards trimmed from larger sheets of etched images along with a single drawing signed “R. Ck.” suggesting it is his work on the largest set (incomplete) of 19 cards. The other four sets also incomplete are grouped by the similarity in style and letterforms. All cards contain a humorously named person with an image and a riddle. Presumably the sheet contained the answers to the riddles. Queen Victoria and Sir Edwin Eglinton (the Eglinton Tournament 1839) suggest the possible date of 1840.

  • Title: [Collection of pictorial conundrum cards] [graphic].
  • Production: [England], [between 1820 and 1840?]
  • Publication: [England] : [publisher not identified], [between 1820 and 1840?]

Catalog Record

724 820C

Acquired January 2021

Simon Lord Fraser of Lovat

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Portrait of the elderly Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, whole length, sitting on a chair, its back carved with a scallop shell; he holds a book in his right hand with his left hand in his waistcoat. To his right is a small side table with a quill pen in ink bottle and along the wall shelves of books.

  • Title: Simon Lord Fraser of Lovat [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : [R. Walker], [1746]

Catalog Record

746.00.00.31

Acquired January 2021

Proof sheets of illustrations for publications…

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drawings of a variety of animals, see description belowA collection of 24 proof sheets, mostly eight images per sheet, surrounded by typographic border. The images range from individual animals, such as sloth, sheep dog, ass, lion and tiger, to small country scenes by Bewick or in his style, to battledowrs and chapbook illustrations from Robin Hood to Blue Beard. Also included are satirical prints such as Bewick’s ‘Clown’s Visit to the Moon’, or Davison’s publication on local history.

 

  • Title: [Proof sheets of illustrations for publications by William Davison of Alnwick] [graphic].
  • Publication: [Alnwick] : Published by W. Davison, Bondgate Street, Alnwick, [between 1820 and 1840]

Catalog Record 

75 D285 820

Acquired July 2020