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

[Nine untitled views]

Nine views, arranged in three rows with three each, showing castles and fortifications, houses, bridges over rivers, and harbor.

  • Title: [Nine untitled views] [graphic].
  • Publication: [Alnwick] : Printed and published by W. Davison, Alnwick, [between 1812 and 1817]

Catalog Record 

812.00.00.116

Acquired September 2019

Quite politely

Click for larger image

A gentleman in a riding habit (left) rides his horse through the door of a cottage startling the family who sit at their dinner table. The man’s hunting dog jumps at the young son who sits closest to the door; he screams in terror, his fork and knife frozen part way to his mouth and his leg thrown up, spilling a pitcher from the table. The mother raises up her arms in terror, letting the cutlery fly; in her mouth is a gnawed bone. Behind her is a wall with shelves lined with dishes and mugs. Her husband (right), back to the viewer, turns to the intruder pointing a long spear. His knife and fork are on the floor below his chair. The gentleman addresses the cottagers, “Och, dont disturb y’rselves my Nonies I only want to know whether you cou’d be after informing me where I cou’d meet with a decent night’s lodging for man and beast.”

  • Creator: Grant, C. J. (Charles Jameson), active 1830-1852, artist.
  • Title: Quite politely [drawing].
  • Created: [England], [between 1830 and 1852?]

Catalog Record & Digital Collection

Drawings G761 no. 6 Box123

Acquired November 2013

The fox at the cupboard

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A view of the interior of a cottage with an old woman asleep in a chair, her feet resting on a low footstool in front of open door (left); in her lap she holds an open book and a pair of spectacles. On the right, a boy in a smock stands on a stool in front of an open cupboard eating from a full bowl. Along the back wall is a pair of casement windows with a drop leaf table below and pictures on the wall to the left. A cat walks across the center of the scene looking up at the boy.

  • Creator: Grant, C. J. (Charles Jameson), active 1830-1852, artist.
  • Title: The fox at the cupboard [drawing].
  • Created: [England, between 1830 and 1852?]

Catalog Record & Digital Collection

Drawings G761 no. 5 Box123

Acquired November 2013

Agreement for altering & reparing a house in Hanover Square

A contract between tenants of the property and a carpenter Sampson Marks to divide and repair the property, with a pen and ink drawing of the present house and the proposed new layout. Included is a discussion of the repair of the associated coach house and stables. With the signatures of the tenants, both husbands and wives, as well as the carpenter and other interested parties, with revisions through 1786 with the last dated 22 November 1786. All witnessed and with penny stamps and wax seals.

  • Title: Agreement for altering & reparing a house in Hanover Square, 1786 March 20 – 1786 November 22.

Catalog Record

Acquired June 2012

A catalogue of all the genuine and modern houshold furniture … at Wollascote Hall, …Worcester

  • Title: A catalogue of all the genuine and modern houshold furniture &c. &c. at Wollascote Hall, near Stourbridge, in the County of Worcester; late the residence of Edward Oliver, Esq. which will be sold by auction, on the premises by R. Devey, on Monday next, October 6, 1800 …
  • Published: Stourbridge : Printed by J. Rollason, 1800.

Catalog Record

Acquired May 2012

[Album of amateur prints by Charlton Wollaston…]

Cover: [Album of amateur prints by Charlton Wollaston...]

Selection: [Album of amateur prints by Charlton Wollaston...]

An album of amateur etchings, mostly by Charlton Wollaston and The Hon. Booth Grey, and a few pen and grey wash landscape sketches and portraits. Many of the etchings are represented by multiple impressions and variant states, and on various paper stocks. Also mounted in the album is a copy of a bust of a man by Miss Clarke, from College-Green Worcester and dated 1789. Some later prints, mounted on 19th century photolithographs. The etchings represent country scenes — thatched cottages, peasants, farms and farm animals, and peasants at work — as well as views of churches, villages, ruins, and landscapes with row boats and skiffs on rivers. Also included are several engravings and prints from published works on various topics including a large engraving of Greek sculptural elements pasted on the inside of the back cover.

  • Title: [Album of amateur prints by Charlton Wollaston, Booth Grey, and others, with some drawings].
  • Executed: [England, between 1754 and 1789?]

View Catalog Record

Acquired September, 2011 by the Lewis Walpole Library.

Jack in his element

Jack in his element.

Published: [London] : Publish’d 17th June 1793 by Robt. Sayer & Co., Fleet Street, London, [1793]

793.06.17.01+ Impression 2

Poll, the widow of William, stands at her cottage door in a village near the sea, a ship in full-sail in the distance, as Jack delivers the sad news of the death of her husband. In the verses engraved below recount the “jovial” life of a sailor to the refrain of “In every mess I finds a friend, in every port a wife.” Five columns of verse below title: Bold Jack the sailor, here I come, pray how d’ye like my nib …

Jack in his element: 1 print on wove paper : mezzotint ; plate mark 35.3 x 25.3 cm., on sheet 37 x 29 cm.Subjects (Library of Congress): Sailors; Dwellings; Servants; Spouses; Satires (Visual works)–England–1793; Genre prints–England–1793; Mezzotints–England–London–1793; Sayer, Robert, 1725-1794, publisher.

Gift of William M. O’Keefe; July 2010.

Lewis Walpole Library new acquisition: July, 2010