Diamond cut diamond, or, A whimsical information

description below

“The Lord Mayor sits (right) in profile to the left in a chair of state facing a city officer in a long gown holding a wand who leads in a file of five amused ‘cits’, three men and two women. The officer says: “Here are a number of People brought before your Honor, by your Honor’s Order, for not keeping the pavement clean before their Houses in Frosty Weather – according to the Act of Parliament for that purpose; but the worst of all is – here is a Worthy Alderman, lays information, that the pavement before your Honor’s Door is as much neglected as any of the rest – and moreover says that he himself had a fall there in the late Frost, which shook him so much, that he has been unable to digest Turtle or Venison ever since – A material injury to one of the Body Corporate.” The alderman, who heads the file, clasps an enormous paunch. The Mayor answers, proffering a coin: “Well, Well, if that is the case, take my five Shillings, and say no more about the Business.” The Mayor wears spectacles and a chain of office; he has not the plebeian appearance of the alderman and his companions. (Charles Price was Lord Mayor 1802-3.)”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Roberts, P. (Piercy), active 1785-1824, printmaker, publisher.
  • Title: Diamond cut diamond, or, A whimsical information [graphic] / Woodward delin. ; etch’d by Roberts.
  • Publication: London : Pubd. by P. Roberts, 28 Middle Row, Holborn, [1803?]

Catalog Record

803.00.00.53+

Acquired February 2024

Le colera de Napoleon

description below

A Spanish version of Gillray’s 1803 satire ‘Maniac Raving’s-or-Little Boney in a Strong Fit’, the texts in the plate adapted to the Spanish relationship with France during the Peninsular War – after the invading French armies were defeated by the Spanish in Andalusia at the Battle of Bailen ‘Napoleon is frantic with rage at the news from Spain… He blames Godoy (whom he had made ‘Prince of the Algarves’) for deceiving him, apostrophizes Talleyrand, reproaches Dupont, and his second-in-command Vedel, for the capitulation of Baylen… his deceptions are discovered by the ‘perfidious Englishman’, probably Sir Hew Dalrymple, the Governor of Gibraltar’ (British Museum catalogue).

  • Title: Le colera de Napoleon [graphic].
  • Publication: [Spain] : [publisher not identified], [1808 or 1809?]

Catalog Record

808.00.00.38+

Acquired April 2023

The old bachelor’s thermometer

description below

The image at top shows an old man sitting in an armchair on the right, his gouty foot resting on a footstool, a crutch seen leaning against a stool beside him. He looks up at a younger woman on the left, who wears a bonnet and apron and is looking down and away from him. Draperies and a framed picture of Cupid shooting an arrow decorate the wall behind them. The text below, in two columns with an age listed at the beginning of each line, tells the humorous tale of the consequences of a man putting off marriage for prideful reasons from age “16 – incipient palpitations towards the young ladies”, through the ages of “29 – rails against the fair sex”, “37 – indulge in every kind of dissipation”, and “48 – thinks living alone quite irksome …”. Eventually, he resolves to have a prudent young woman as housekeeper and companion, gradually feeling some attachment to her and becoming completely under her influence. At age 60, as he begins to feel ill, and “grows rapidly worse, has his will made in her favour, and makes an exit.”

  • Title: The old bachelor’s thermometer. The old maid’s thermometer [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Published by S. and J. Fuller, 34, Rathbone-Place, [between 1809 and 1839]
  • Manufacture: [London] : Printed by L. Harrison, 373, Strand.

Catalog Record

809.00.00.64

Acquired March 2020

Mother Cole

Queen Caroline, bedraggled and drunk as she sits slouched in an arm chair

Caricature of Queen Caroline, bedraggled and drunk as she sits slouched in an arm chair, her foot resting on a stool; she wears a hat with three ostrich feathers and around her neck hangs a small portrait (indistinct image) and holds a large glass of brandy while a servant (Alderman Wood wearing the fur-trimmed robes), his eyes cross-eyed, stands beside the chair in attendance with a decanter in hand.

  • Printmaker: Lane, Theodore, 1800-1828, printmaker.
  • Title: Mother Cole [graphic].
  • Publication: London : Pubd. by G. Humphrey, 27 St. James’s St., July 23, 1821.

Catalog Record 

821.07.23.01

Acquired March 2019