Tag Archives: Donkeys

Sporting characters

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Detailed description below
On recto, two men walk to the left in a wood with guns. The man behind (right) holds his gun by the barrel pointed towards his companion’s posterior; he wears colored spectacles, a top hat, and is smoking a cigar. The man in front (left) looks back towards his companion as he holds his rifle by the butt, the barrel pointed over his shoulder at his companion’s face. The lines below: “I never likes to go out with a man as don’t carry his gun like a sportsman.” “Not I. I’m always wery particular.!”

On verso, a pencil drawing of two men (dustmen?) conversing as one points to the donkey that he holds by the reins.

Catalog Record 

Drawings H43 no. 1 Box D125

Acquired February 2019

The restive Pegasus…

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“A man in ragged but quasi-fashionable dress rides (right to left) an ass through a river which flows past a steep mountain. The animal jibs, with ears set back; the rider raises a whip in each hand. He wears, and uses, three pairs of spurs, and attached to his shoulders and to the ass is a monstrous pile of bladders inscribed respectively ‘Repartee’, ‘Nonsensical Verses’, ‘Catastrophe’, ‘Sentiment’, ‘Blasphemies’, ‘Puns’, ‘Duels’, ‘Double Entendres’, ‘Metaphors’, ‘Ghosts’, ‘Melting Speeches’, ‘Squibs’, ‘Dialogue’, ‘Daggers Poisons’.”–British Museum online catalogue, description of a later state.

  • Printmaker: Grinagain, Giles, printmaker, artist.
  • Title: The restive Pegasus, or, The dramatic author foiled in his attempt to ascend Parnassus [graphic] / Giles Grinagain in. et f.
  • Publication: [London] : Pub. July 25, 1802, by S. Howitt, Panton Street, [25 July 1802]

Catalog Record 

802.07.25.01

Acquired November 2017

The Q-n’s ass in a band-box

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“The Queen, grossly caricatured, sits on a zebra which stands in a round band-box with a hinged and upturned lid inscribed ‘a Present from Baro Bergami’. The zebra has the (profile) head of Wood, looking with greedy and imbecile satisfaction towards a sieve of food inscribed ‘[Wa]rden of St Catherine’. This is held out by two hands projecting from the left margin. The Queen, with a grin both calculating and insane, sits full-face, negligently holding reins attached to Wood’s mouth, her left hand on her hip. She sits in a smaller (bottomless) band-box which surrounds her from hips to knees, the left leg, in frilled drawers, being thrust forward from beneath it. She wears a décolletée dress; on her head is an erection of feathers and flowers rising from a circlet inscribed ‘Wood’. An owl (cf. British Museum Satires no. 14199) flies by her head. In the background is Brandenburgh House, in front of which is a braying ass.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Lane, Theodore, 1800-1828, printmaker.
  • Title: The Q-n’s ass in a band-box [graphic].
  • Publication: London : Pubd. by G. Humphrey, 27 St. James’s St., Jany. 22, 1821.

Catalog Record

821.01.22.01

Acquired March 2017