The old proprietors advice

description below

“Prince Leopold (right), in uniform, puts his head through a glassless aperture in a window in the door of his ‘Grecian Establish[ment]–Co[burg]’, to look intently at a fat Turk who stands in profile to the right, elaborately dressed and holding a long pipe with smoking bowl. The door, partly cut off by the right margin, is flanked by a Corinthian pillar and set in a wall on which are placards: ‘This . Shop!!! will shortly open under entire new Management–Vivant [sic] Rex’; a Union Jack poster (partly covered); the Russian eagle, and a fleur-de-lis, the two last inscribed ‘Loan’. The Turk: ‘What have you taken the Shop? well if you take my advice you will not give Your Customers too much Credit for I can tell you they are a queer set to deal with by the bye they nearly ruined me–and mind that you look sharp after your Shopmen’.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Heath, William, 1795-1840, printmaker.
  • Title: The old proprietors advice [graphic] / William Heath.
  • Publication: [London] : Pub. April 10, 1830, by T. McLean, 26 Haymarket, [10 April 1830]

Catalog Record

830.04.10.01+

Acquired November 2020

The female agent

description below

“Heading to etched verses. Mrs. Clarke, seated on a dais, receives applicants for commissions who advance through a doorway (left). She sits on a drum, wearing a cocked hat and military sash over a white dress, and holds up a sword. A short fat soldier holds over her head a Union flag with the white horse of Hanover. Two soldiers stand at attention with fixed bayonets behind her, and a fat trumpeter blows his trumpet. Another Union flag, without the white horse, flies from the corner of the large dais. On the wall hangs a notice: ‘Half-pay Commissions at Half Price for Ready Money’. The applicants press forward in a bunch, headed by a fat and gouty ‘cit’ hobbling on two sticks, behind whom is a chimneysweep. The first of three verses: ‘Come all you brave Fellows who wish for Promotion. Wether Captain or Colonel or a General’s your notion. A Warehouse I keep for the sale of Commissions, And our Prices you’ll find will suit all conditions, You’ll be treated with Honor if you secrecy mark Sir For my Master is Noble and I am his Clarke Sir, You’ll be treated &c.’ The last lines: ‘But forget not the ready (Gold or Notes) for pray mark! My Master wants Money, & so does his Clarke. But forget not &c.’ The verses are bordered by spears which serve as posts for plump purses, symmetrically attached to them.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Williams, Charles, active 1797-1830, printmaker.
  • Title: The female agent [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. March 1809 by Walker, No. 7 Cornhill, [March 1809]

Catalog Record

809.03.00.05+

Acquired June 2020

Mother Carey’s chickens

description below

“A stout and comely lady stands at the door of an ornamentally rustic cottage, shaking a cloth from which tiny officers leap out, holding money-bags. The cloth is inscribed in large letters ‘Pin Money instead of Allowance’. She says: “This is a profitable Plan of his and pays me a Devilish deal better than he can, besides the Patronage!!” Five elderly officers of normal size (right) watch their pigmy rivals with consternation. One looks through his glass, saying, “To waste ones health in unwholesome Climates an then fail of promotion because we cannot fee ****** or Army Agents Agents.!!” Another says: “Mother Careys Chickens by – then we shall have a storm indeed!” A third exclaims: “What to spend our lives in the service of our Country, and to be thus degraded by a parcel of Boys!!” He has a wooden leg and a patch over one eye. Another had lost his right arm, and the group seem hardly fit for active service. The ‘boys’ wear fashionable crescent-shaped cocked hats with plumes, the others old-fashioned hats with cockade, loop, and button. Over the door is inscribed in large letters ‘… mus Cottage’. It has the ornamental Gothic windows with leaded panes and thatched roof of fashionable rusticity. Beside it is a weeping willow. Below the title: ‘NB these Birds have lately been seen hovering about the Horse Guards’. Below the design: ‘a Storm Finch, or stormy petterel (the Mother Careys Chickens of the Sailors). Procellaria Pelagica of Linnœus. is seldom or never seen but in the great Ocean, and then when observed flying near a Ship, is the sure prognostication of a Storm, the analagy [sic] of effect has induced modern Naturalists to class these, with the Pelagica of Linnœus, tho differing in plumage’.”–British Museum online catalogue.

 

  • Printmaker: Williams, Charles, active 1797-1830, printmaker.
  • Title: Mother Carey’s chickens [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. Novr. 1808 by S.W. Fores, No. 50 Piccadilly, [November 1808]

Catalog Record

808.11.00.01+

Acquired June 2020

Knock and ye shall enter

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“An archaic iron-studded door, with posts and lintel of solid but ancient oak, represents the door of the ‘COMMONS’ [inscription on lintel]. Above: ‘”They of Rome are enter’d in our Counsels Sh.’ [‘Coriolanus’, I. ii]. An old-clothes’ man stands at the door in profile to the left gazing up at the inscription; he raises the knocker, a ring in the mouth of an angry lion’s head. He is bearded, with an ultra-Jewish profile, and has three hats piled on his own, the topmost being a flaunting feminine erection. He wears a ragged and patched gaberdine, old-fashioned buckled shoes, and carries across his shoulder a large bag, from a hole in which projects a pig’s foot (a pig in his poke). On his back is an open box of trinkets, containing watches. Close behind him stands a turbaned Turk, watching him with eager anxiety. The Jew: ‘Come I sha–Open the door vill ye–I vants to come in–and heres a shentlemans a friend of mines–vants to come in too–dont be afeard–I dont vant a sheat for nothing–I can pay for it So help me Got.’ Three men (safely inside) look down at the applicants from a small open window beside the door (right): a dissenter, holding his hat, and characterized by lank hair and plebeian features (resembling Liston as Maw-Worm, cf. British Museum Satires No. 16943); a Jesuit wearing a biretta, and putting a thumb to his nose, and a fat elderly monk; the last two frown. The left door-post (somewhat cracked) is inscribed: ‘OAK Suppose to be sound Put up 1688 only latly discovered to be full of Skakes[?peare].'”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Heath, William, 1795-1840, printmaker.
  • Title: Knock and ye shall enter [graphic] / [man with an umbrella] Eq. del.
  • Publication: [London] : Pub. by T. McLean, 26 Haymarket …, [ca. June 1829]

Catalog Record 

829.06.00.01+

Acquired October 2018