Enthusiasm delineated

description below

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”

  • Printmaker: Mills, Isaac, 1770-1857, printmaker.
  • Title: Enthusiasm delineated [graphic] / W. Hogarth invt. ; I. Mills sculpt. ; copied from Hogarth’s hand-writing beneath the original print.
  • Edition: Proof.
  • Publication: [London] : Published Novr. 12th, 1795 by John Ireland, No. 3 Poets Corner, Palace Yard, Wesminster, [12 November 1795]

Catalog Record

795.11.12.02+

Acquired September 2022

The doctors in labour

Print with twelve panels relating to the affair of Mary Toft

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.

  • Title: The doctors in labour, or, A new whim wham from Guildford [graphic] : being a representation of [the] frauds by which [the] Godliman woman, carried on her pretended rabbit breeding; also of [the] simplicity of our doctors, by which they assisted to carry on that imposture discover’d their own skill, & contributed to [the] Mirth, of His Majesties liege subjects.
  • Published: [London?] : [publisher not identified], [1726]

Catalog Record 

726.00.00.26+

Acquired September 2018