Summer amusement at Farmer G-‘s near Windsor

description below

“The interior of a dairy: George III (left), in shirt-sleeves, is churning; the Queen, dressed as a farmer’s wife, sits in the window counting the coins which the Princess Royal pours on to the table. The Princess has a basket on her arm and is dressed like a country-girl. The Queen says, “Bless me, Child, you have made a very bad market! Good Heavens is it possible the people can be so unreasonable these plentiful times to expect six eggs for a groat! You shall tramp to London next market day.” The King adds, “A very bad market girl, indeed, a very bad market girl – Limy shall go next” (cf. British Museum Satires No. 6947). Behind the King are shelves with bowls of cream, a furtive cat drinks from one of them. Above them, three milk-scores are chalked on the wall, headed, ‘Cartwheel’s score’, ‘The Widow Waggonrut’, and ‘Mrs Towser’. On the ground (left) is a pile of cheeses. Outside the wide doorway (right) Pitt, elegantly dressed, is milking a cow with a fastidious air; he sings: “I made war with Kate, a buxom Northern Lass: But such my cruel fate – ” Thurlow, wearing a smock, stands with his back to Pitt, cracking a whip; he says, “She bid you kiss her A——! Damn the Whip I’ll never learn the right smack of a Carter.””–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Newton, Richard, 1777-1798, printmaker.
  • Title: Summer amusement at Farmer G-‘s near Windsor [graphic].
  • Publication: London : Pubd. August 9, 1791, by W. Holland, No. 50 Oxford Street, [9 August 1791]

Catalog Record

791.08.09.01+

Acquired September 2023

The blessing

 

description below

An austere-looking man with a shaved head and ragged clothes, kneels in prayer before his simple meal, unaware that as he recites his blessing, his cat is drinking from his bowl. On the table is a book on which lay his spectacles; his hat hangs off the back of his chair. On the wall behind them is a picture of the three crosses on Calvary.

 

  • Title: The blessing [graphic].
  • Publication: [Alnwick] : Printed and published by W. Davison, Alnwick, [between 1812 and 1817]

Catalog Record

812.00.00.86 Impression 2

Acquired August 2022

The cat’s-paw!

description below

A satire of William IV’s involvement in the debate leading up to the Reform Act of 1832: A cat with the face of William IV is being persuaded to pull a hot chestnut from a blazing fire by a bewigged monkey (Lord Chancellor Henry Brougham). The fire is labelled with words such as ‘rights’, ‘reform’, and ‘popularity’. A portrait of Whig Prime Minister Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, hangs above the fireplace.

 

  • Title: The cat’s-paw! [graphic] / E. Brookes delt.
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. by Marianne Humphreys, St. James’s Stt., [approximately 1832]

Catalog Record

832.00.00.52

Acquired November 2022

Concert of cats

description below

A group of cats look at book opened to a musical score, on the right and images of mice on the left. Some of the cats are singing while one plays a trumpet; one of the cats wears spectacles. In the foreground are a violin and loose sheets of music. The book is propped against a birdhouse from which emerges a mouse; a cloth has been draped over the birdhouse.

  • Title: [Concert of cats] [graphic].
  • Publication: [London?] : [publisher not identified], [not before July 1817?]

Catalog Record

817.07.00.02

Acquired April 2020

A harlot’s progress. Plate III

description belowA copy in reverse of William Hogarth’s Plate 3 of A harlot’s progress: In a shabby room in Drury Lane; Moll Hackabout is shown having risen late (the watch shows 11:45), attended by a serving-woman who has lost part of her nose to syphilis; in the background, the magistrate, John Gonson, enters quietly with officers to arrest her; pinned to the window frame are two portrait prints of the hero and heroines of “The Beggar’s Opera”, Captain Mackheath and Polly Peacham, (Polly replaces Dr. Sacheverell in Hogarth’s print), the wig-box of James Dalton, highwayman, sits above the bed, and one of several beer tankards on the floor carries the name of a Drury Lane tavern. A kitten plays at Moll’s feet. A copy of Bishop Gibson’s “Pastoral Letter to …” serves as a butter dish. Above the window on the left is a print after a Titian painting depicting the angel staying the hand of Abraham as he is about to slay Isaac. Medicine bottles on the window sill suggest that Molly is already ill with the disease that will later kill her.

  • Title: A harlot’s progress. Plate III [graphic] : The compleat trull at her lodgings in Drury Lane = Elle est reduite à la misère dans son logement de Drury Lane / invented & painted by Wm. Hogarth.
  • Publication: [London] : [publisher not identified], [not before 25 March 1768]

Catalog Record

Hogarth 768.03.25.11+ Box 210

Acquired December 2019

Taking possession of his father’s effects

description below

Copy in reverse of the first state of Plate 1 of Hogarth’s ‘The Rake’s Progress’ (Paulson 132): the Jacobean interior of the house of Tom Rakewell’s late father with Tom at left being measured for a suit as he gives a handful of coins to the pregnant Sarah Young; behind him sits a lawyer compiling inventories; on the floor are boxes of miscellaneous goods, piles of mortgages, indentures, bond certificates and other documents; an old woman brings faggots to light a fire and an upholsterer attaching fabric (purchased from William Tothall of Covent Garden) to the wall reveals a hiding place for coins which tumble out.–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Title: Taking possession of his father’s effects [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Publish’d wth. [the] consent of Mrs. Hogarth, by Henry Parker, at No. 82 in Cornhill, March 25, 1768.

Catalog Record 

Hogarth 768.03.25.01+ Box 210

Acquired December 2019

Effects of passion

A scene in a sitting room, a man in a fit of anger kicks over a chair and table set with tea; a pitcher, cups and saucers, tongs and other tableware are in flight or shattered on the floor. The man holds his wig in his left hand as a woman looks on with fear. Two cats fight in front of a fireplace above which hangs a seascape with rough waters and lightening. On the back wall another painting shows a man standing over a woman.

  • Title: Effects of passion [graphic].
  • Publication: [Alnwick] : Printed and published by W. Davison, Alnwick, [between 1812 and 1817]

Catalog record 

812.00.00.118

Acquired September 2019

Anticipation, or, Taxes as they will be!!

In seven scenes in a design of two tiers, citizens dispute the oppressive fees imposed by a zealous tax collector who taxes bugs, pets, a bulbous nose and a runny nose, corns on a foot, and a man’s skin. In the scene on the upper right, the tax collector penalizes a man whom he accuses of evading tax as he defecates in a bush.

  • Printmaker: Cruikshank, Isaac, 1756?-1811?, printmaker.
  • Title: Anticipation, or, Taxes as they will be!! [graphic] / Woodward delnt.
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. June 1st, 1796, by S.W. Fores, No. 50 Piccadilly, corner of Sackville Street …, [1 June 1796]

Catalog Record 

796.06.01.03+

Acquired October 2019

The town tooth drawer

The interior of a well-furnished room. The dentist stands in front of a middle-aged woman seated in a chair (right); he holds her forehead with one hand, with the other he applies a small instrument to her mouth. She grasps a shawl in her left hand. A black boy in livery stands behind the dentist (left) holding an open case of instruments; he looks round grinning. A young woman stands clasping her hands and looking with an expression of horrified concern at the operation. The dentist wears a bag-wig. A cat arches its back and meows. Through a draped sash-window is a steeple. On the wall is a bird in a cage and an oval landscape. Below it is a settee on which sheef of paper.

  • Title: The town tooth drawer [graphic].
  • Publication: [Alnwick] : Printed and published by W. Davison, Alnwick, [between 1812 and 1817]

Catalog Record 

812.00.00.100

Acquired September 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