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.
812.00.00.128
Acquired August 2022
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’.
823.11.25.01
Acquired April 2023
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.
830.00.00.163
Acquired February 2022
A 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.
724 820C
Acquired January 2021
An example of the “line and dot” caricature.
817.02.01.01
Acquired July 2021
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.
746.00.00.31
Acquired January 2021
A 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.
75 D285 820
Acquired July 2020
A group portrait of various doctors and quacks, including Mrs Mapp, Dr. Joshua Ward and John Taylor. A version of the print also published with lettering “The company of undertakers”. The three named quacks occupy the top, twelve other ‘doctors’ are situated in the lower half; most of them have gold canes held up to their noses, one is dipping his finger into a urinal while another holds it.
Hogarth 817.00.00.24
Acquired January 2021
A copy of the caricature of the British Statesman and High Lord Chancellor Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778-1868), that appeared in the center of an print that was published on 1 October 1834 in Every body’s album & caricature magazine, no. 19. He is depicted as a very thin traveller wearing a Scottish tam over his wig and using a broom as a walking stick; his shoe is worn through. He carries a wooden post labelled “Scratching post”, a box stamped “Containing the freedoms of all the Scotch towns” and a bag with the words “Broken victuals the leavings of the Edinburgh blow out”. Around his waist is another bag, “Oat meal”. Above the image framed in lines in gold ink: “I flatter myself I’ve made a tolerable good job by my “Starring it” with Old Grey in the North! Sold all my numbers of the Penny Magazine, and well puff’d it through every town I went. Made little less than one hundred speeches about, I forget now, Received some score of Burgesses, Freedoms, and Invitations to as many dinners, where I blew my own trumpet & obtained plenty of orders from our Usefull Knowledge Society! Now, woe to the unstamn’d when I get home! I must have a good scrub at my skin presently; I reckon I have got a taste of the fiddle through my itch for travelling!
Drawings M999 no. 1 Box D205
Acquired December 2019
Three figures yawning, woman on the right and two men, sit in chairs around a table with casters, on which sit a book and paper lettered: “W. Davison chymist”. On the wall are two landscape paintings.
812.00.00.105
Acquired September 2019
