Tag Archives: Caricatures

The martyr of equality

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“Orléans (Égalité), looking to the right, stands on the scaffold dressed as a grenadier of the National Guard. He holds out by the hair the decollated head of Louis XVI, while he waves his cap in his right hand. Behind (left) is the guillotine, with the King’s body; streams of blood pour from head and trunk. Below the scaffold (right) are heads and bayonets of the National Guard, and, behind, two large buildings, the windows and roofs filled with spectators; those on the roof wave their hats.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Cruikshank, Isaac, 1764-1811, printmaker.
  • Title: The martyr of equality [graphic] / I. Cruikshanks.
  • Publication: London : Pub. Feb. 12, 1793, by S.W. Fores, N. 3 Piccadilly, [12 February 1793]

Catalog Record

793.02.12.02

Acquired September 2023

A Margate packet

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“The crowded cabin tilts to the right, to the dismay of a family party dining at a table in the foreground. There is a second table in the background with a meal in progress. The cabin is bordered on left and right by two tiers of berths, apparently for two persons, set in panelling, and with curtains festooned along the upper edge. These are filled by suffering travellers. A bench runs along the front of the berths; other passengers sit on camp-stools. Phases of misery, discomfort, resignation, and (by exception) complacency are realistically illustrated. A sailor pushes a mop-stick through an open hatch in the roof.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Title: A Margate packet [graphic] : the effects of a squall, or a sudden shift of ballast / drawn by a Naval Officer.
  • Published: [London] : Published by G. Humphrey, 27 St. James’s Str., London, Novr 6th, 1821.

Catalog Record

821.11.06.01

Acquired September 2023

New drop scene, or, A managerial puff!!

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A man stands in a room holding a caduceus decorated comic mask, saying ”When I do stare, see how the subjects quacke’.” He is surrounded with bills and a bag of coins on the table, both suggesting corruption. At sign hanging from the table reads “Alexandrian Memorial, A loss is no benefit. No committee.” Below on the floor, another discarded scroll reads “Rejected with prejudice.” At his foot is an animal (a fox?) holding a sign “Designs [ca]refully copied, civilly returned, and he carries in his hand a piece of paper “I perceive the trick & will avoid the cheat. Na-th.” Behind him hangs a sign, “The exact-u-trick is safe or 22d Sept.” On the wall is a picture of the facade of a theater. Probably a satire on an unidentified theater manager.

  • Title: New drop scene, or, A managerial puff!! – Cunning Isaac! [graphic].
  • Publication: [London?] : [publisher not identified], [approximately 1810?]

Catalog Record

810.00.00.85

Acquired September 2023

The ladies’ valentine writer

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Valentine writer comprising twenty-four comic valentine texts, many with small illustrations. Hand-colored folding plate with a comic valentine to a cook, above which is a red-nosed caricature.
Original self-wrappers, the upper with an engraved vignette of cupid firing an arrow from the center of a rose, titling above and imprint below, the whole in a double rule frame with decorative floral corner ornament.

  • Title: The ladies’ valentine writer : for the present year.
  • Publication: London : Printed by J. Catnach, 2 & 3, Monmouth Cou[rt] in the parish of St. Giles’s, [1820s?]

Catalog Record

File 19 820L

Acquired August 2023

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