68 789 R288
Acquired May 2024
Copy of Hogarth’s print; interior of a chapel with an impassioned preacher inspiring his listeners who include a woman swooning on the floor and a young couple embracing; many of the congregation are clutching figures of Christ; a barking dog with a collar labelled “Whitfield” echoes the preacher. In the lower rigth corner, an image of a cross-section of brain, labeled below frame “A Methodist’s brain”
795.11.12.02+
Acquired September 2022
61 C41 M813 P
Acquired December 2021
Print with twelve panels relating to the affair of Mary Toft, “the rabbit breeder”: from top left, she is held aloft by two men and a Harlequin or Merry Andrew, she has a rabbit in either hand; she pursues a rabbit while working in a field; she dreams of being impregnated by rabbit, Cupid is shown on a cloud beside her bed holding a rabbit in either hand; she is seated in a chair attended by two women while the two men and Harlequin discuss the monstrous birth; Harlequin demonstrates that he can express milk from her breast; Harlequin feels “the rabbets leapin in her belly” while two men look on; she sits on the edge of a bed and Harlequin kneels to seize a rabbit that emerges from her skirts while a doctor raises his hands in surprise, wishing to anatomize the animal; Harlequin stands behind a table holding a balance in which he weighs dung removed from the rabbit explaining to two men that this will allow him to judge whether the animal had “breath’d in air”; doctors and midwives discuss the phenomenon around a table and Harlequin enters claiming that the birth must be “praeternatural”; a crowd of gentlemen are welcomed to the bagnio in Leicester Square where Toft is housed; two men spy from the door to Toft’s room as another hands her a dead rabbit; Toft, weeping, is led away to Bridewell by two constables while Harlequin “sits upon Repenting stool, Cursing his fate in being made a Fool. See British Museum online catalogue.
726.00.00.26+
Acquired September 2018