Fictitious memoir.
53 Eg29 772
Acquired April 2019
“The Duchess of St. Albans, immensely fat, florid, and bejewelled, and a stout elderly naval officer wearing loose wide trousers, and apparently doing hornpipe steps, his hands on his hips, dance side by side with rollicking abandon. The others of the set: one man and two ladies on the left and one lady and two men on the right dance rigidly erect, and watch the central pair with hauteur; the men are dandies, the women slim and fashionable. The duchess has a swirling paradise-plume in her towering loops of hair, above tossing ringlets.”–British Museum online catalogue.
829.05.00.08+
Acquired October 2018
“Louis XVIII, grotesquely obese (left), and the Tsar kiss, their lips touching. Louis, whose head is much the larger, grasps the back of Alexander’s head; the Tsar bends from the waist to reach beyond the King’s paunch. Louis, with the gouty legs and old-fashioned gold-embroidered coat and waistcoat of English caricature, wears the order of the Saint Esprit. The Tsar, in uniform, has the high pinched waist and bulging breast of the dandy (cf. British Museum Satires No. 13029) with enormous cavalry boots to the thigh, huge epaulets, and a sash, but no sword. He says: “My Dear Legitimate Brother (tho I believe I call Boney the same) I am happy to serve you tho your cursed Country Men almost destroyed my country–” Louis answers: “Ma Chere [sic] Ami, I am so rejoiced at your Brotherly Kindness in putting off our payment & takeing off your Troops that I could Devour you.” The embrace is watched by two Frenchmen on the left, and on the right by the King of Prussia, the Emperor of Austria, and a young man (? Napoleon’s son). Frederick William wears dandified uniform like that of the Tsar but with long trousers; he supports a large sword hanging from a belt, and holds a huge cocked hat; he watches the embrace with distaste, saying, “I am obliged to follow the Leaders at Present.” Francis I says: “I must agree for the moment but I have a Grandson.” One Frenchman wears uniform with top-boots; he says: “De Legitimate francais be too much for John Bull de manoeuvre by Gar ve want de Time & we show dem vat ve intend.” His companion, an elderly man wearing a court suit with a powdered wig (Richelieu attended the Conference on behalf of France) says delightedly: “Ah-ha he do him vid Compliments & den we do them out of the Money.” Behind them is a row of melancholy knock-kneed Grenadiers.”–British Museum online catalogue.
818.11.18.01+
Acquired October 2018
A macabre caricature divided into two compartments, The Dandy and The Dangle. On the left, a strutting dandy ties his neckcloth in front of a mirror saying: ‘I declare these large Neckcloths are monstrously handy, They [serve] for a shirt too and make one a Dandy.’ The right hand image is of a dandy, head covered in a cloth, dangling from a wooden beam with a tie around his neck. Behind him is a town square and in the foreground, a crowd looks on. The image is accompanied by the text: ‘When a man comes to this there’s little to hope, His neat Dandy Neckcloth is changed for a Rope’.
810.00.00.83+
Acquired November 2017
Catalog Record & Digital Collection
812.05.30.01 Impression 2
Acquired 2005
Catalog Record & Digital Collection
835.08.01.50+
Acquired April 2013