“Hudibras and Ralpho are in the stocks, the knight’s boots, sword and pistols taking the place of the fiddle; a sympathetic widow, accompanied by her maid, addresses Hudibras while villagers gather round to mock, and a small boy urinates on Ralpho’s foot”–British Museum online catalogue.
Folio 75 H67 768B
Acquired January 2021
A view of the grounds of the Castle Park in Colchester (Essex) with tents erected for the celebration of the anniversary of the Sunday school. The tents, along the left side accommodate a series of booths, each equipped to feed the children in orderly queues. Against a background of trees along the perimeter of the lawns are groups of people strolling, walking dogs, or sitting with their own picnic baskets; they are apparently of the middle or better classes (judging by their clothes) looking on their objects of charity?
797.10.01.01+
Acquired August 2020
A scene from Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’ showing Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, Count of Donoratico (c. 1220-1289), an Italian nobleman, politician and naval commander and his sons and grandchildren imprisoned in a dungeon. After Reynolds.
Drawings R79 no. 18 Box D205
Acquired August 2020
A moral tale modeled after William Hogarth’s Industry and idleness.
659 820 El46
Acquired March 2020
A copy in reverse of William Hogarth’s Plate 6 of A harlot’s progress: A dilapidated room with Moll Hackabout’s friends, mostly prostitutes, gathered around her open coffin, several of them weeping; one young woman stands with her back to the scene as she gazes at herself in the mirror. On the right, a clergyman spills his brandy as he surreptitiously gropes beneath a woman’s skirt; Moll’s serving woman, standing at the coffin with a wine bottle and glass in hand scowls at the pair. Under the window and to the left, the undertaker flirts with a pretty young prostitute who picks a handkerchief from his pocket. In the foreground Moll’s small son plays with a spinning top. Sprigs of yew (rosemary?) decorate her coffin; a plate of yew rests on the floor at the parson’s feet, another spring at her son’s feet.
Hogarth 768.03.25.14+ Box 210
Acquired December 2019
A copy in reverse of William Hogarth’s Plate 5 of A harlot’s progress: In a squalid room Moll Hackabout, wrapped in a sheet, is dying while two doctors (Richard Rock and Jean Misaubin) argue over their remedies. Her serving-woman reaches out to them in alarm to get their attention for the invalid, while another woman rifles through Moll’s portmanteau (with her initials as in Plate 1). A small boy knelling next to Moll’s chair scratches his head as he turns a joint of meat roasting in front of the fire while a pot overflows on the grate. An over-turned table with an advertisement “Practical scheme … ‘Anodyne” litters the floor in the foreground.
Hogarth 768.03.25.13+ Box 210
Acquired December 2019
Copy in reverse of the first state of Plate 4 of Hogarth’s ‘The Rake’s Progress’ (Paulson 135): In this scene two baliffs, one with an arrest notice in his hand, have stopped Tom Rakewell’s sedan chair in St. James’s Street; Tom is presumably on his way to White’s gaming house which can be seen in the background. They are foiled in their attempt to arrest Tom for debt as Sarah Young, the young woman whom he had seduced and abandoned, offers the bailiffs her purse instead. Sarah is now a dealer in millinery as is suggested by the notions falling from her purse. In the right foreground a shoe-black apparently taking advantage of the situation to take hold of Tom’s elegant walking stick. Above them a careless lamplighter spills some oil on Tom’s head. To the left a Welshman, probably the creditor, honouring St David’s day (March 1st) with a leek in his hat, accompanied by his manicured dog, simply watches the scene. In the distance is the gate of St James’s Palace with a crowd of sedan-chairs approaching to celebrate the birthday of Queen Caroline.
Hogarth 768.03.25.04+ Box 210
Acquired December 2019
Copy (reversed) of the first state of Plate 7 of Hogarth’s ‘The Rake’s Progress’ (Paulson 138): A room in the Fleet Prison (after the painting at Sir John Soane’s Museum); Tom sits at a table, to right, on which is a rejection letter from John Rich to whom he has submitted a play; his wife clenches her fists, the gaoler asks for garnish money and a boy asks payment for a tankard of ale; to left, Sarah Young has fainted and is being administered smelling salts by one woman while another slaps her hand, her child clings to her skirt; she is supported by an older man with a beard who has dropped a sheet containing a scheme for paying the national debt (a reference to such a scheme put forward by Hogarth’s father); in the background an alchemist works at a forge.”–British Museum online catalogue.
Hogarth 768.03.25.07+ Box 210
Acquired December 2019
First line: Fair lady, lay your costly robes aside …
Woodcut image: a scene in a room with two windows and a table with a lighted candle. On the right Death wearing a crown and holding an arrow and hourglass stands next to a lady who is holding her child’s hand. Beside the child stands a gentleman (doctor). On the ground at Death’s feet are a shovel and emblems of power(?).
822.00.00.64+
Acquired June 2019
Drawings G41 no. 7 Box D120
Acquired June 2018