A devil rolled in snow

description below

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: 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

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

description below

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…

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

Consultation of physicians

description below

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.

 

  • Title: Consultation of physicians [graphic] / Wm. Hogarth invt.
  • Publication: [London] : Printed for Bowles & Carver, No. 69 in St. Pauls Church Yard, London, [ca. 1817]

Catalog Record

Hogarth 817.00.00.24

Acquired January 2021

The itinerant chancellor

description belowA 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!

  • Creator: M., M. S., artist.
  • Title: The itinerant chancellor [art original] / M.S.M. pinxt. March 39.
  • Production: [England], [March 1839]

Catalog Record

Drawings M999 no. 1 Box D205

Acquired December 2019

Yawning is catching

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.

  • Title: Yawning is catching [graphic].
  • Publication: [Alnwick] : Printed and published by W. Davison, Alnwick, [between 1812 and 1817]

Catalog Record 

812.00.00.105

Acquired September 2019

Bat, Cat and Mat

Caricature with Queen Caroline with her arms linked to those of Bergami and her lawyer

Caricature with Queen Caroline with her arms linked to those of Bergami and her lawyer, as they step along the road between St Omer and Calais. The Queen wears a watch at her waist and two miniature portraits hang from cords at her bosom. In the background her coach awaits with a coachman in tall boots smiling at the scene. A re-issue with new background of a plate first published on 19 January 1821.

  • Printmaker: Lane, Theodore, 1800-1828, printmaker.
  • Title: Bat, Cat and Mat [graphic] : how happy could I be with either.
  • Publication: London : Published by G. Humphrey, 27 St. James’s St., June 1, 1821.

Catalog Record 

821.06.01.04

Acquired March 2019

The man of the woods & the cat-o’-mountain

Man with a monkey body and cat with a man's head sitting in front of a fire

“A kitchen scene [with a satire based on the fable of the “catspaw”]. A monkey with Wood’s head squats beside a plump cat with the head in profile of Queen Caroline. She sits gazing at the fire with an eagerly expectant smile. He puts his left hand on her shoulder and takes her right paw which is supported on his knee, looking fixedly at her with greedy expectation. Between the bars of the grate are four chestnuts like large potatoes. These are inscribed respectively: ‘Privileges’, ‘Rights’, ‘Liturgy’, ‘St Catherines’. Beside the grate and attached to a chain is a ‘Kettle of Fish’. Behind the cat is a big trap with steel teeth inscribed ’50 000 per Annum’. Behind it is a dresser, neatly arranged above a cupboard inscribed ‘Lately from St Omers’ [see British Museum Satires no. 13730]. On the dresser are a teapot and butterdish, each with a bust portrait of Bergami, and two cups, inscribed ‘BB’. There are also pans inscribed ‘Hash’ and ‘Stew’, a ‘Tinder’ box and bottle of ‘Brim-Stone’. On the chimneypiece, with other utensils, is a box of ‘Matches’.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Lane, Theodore, 1800-1828, printmaker.
  • Title: The man of the woods & the cat-o’-mountain [graphic].
  • Publication: London : Pubd. by G. Humphrey, 27 St. James’s St., March 27, 1821.

Catalog Record

821.03.27.01 Impression 2

Acquired March 2019