Keep within compass

description below

“A young woman stands within a compass inscribed ‘Fear God’, holding an open book inscribed ‘The Pleasures of Imagination Realized’. At her feet is an open chest full of guineas from which hang bank-notes and jewels; it is inscribed ‘The Reward of Virtue’. A small dog stands beside her. In the background (right) is a country house, on the left farm-buildings and haystacks. The four corners are filled … with the disasters which beset the woman who does not ‘keep within compass’. (1) A woman weeps dejectedly with cards and an empty purse on the ground at her feet. (2) A drunken woman lets an infant fall from her arms; on the wall is a torn print inscribed ‘Domestic Happiness’. (3) A woman is being conducted to the watch-house by two watchmen, one with his lantern, the other with a rattle. (4) She beats hemp in Bridewell, a man standing behind her with a whip, as in Hogarth’s ‘Harlot’s Progress’. …”–British Museum

  • Title: Keep within compass [graphic] : Prudence produceth esteem.
  • Publication: [London] : Printed for & sold by Bowles & Carver, No. 69 in St. Paul’s Church Yard, London, published as the act directs, [not after 1832]

Catalog Record

832.00.00.53

Acquired April 2024

The western prospect of Bears-Den Hall in Co. Surrey

description below

View of a house supposedly near Putney Common, satirically called ‘Bear’s Den Hall’, a rickety house with cracked plaster walls and a chimney-stack with broken brick, and with weeds growing from the cracks and on the roof. A key at the top references many of the features of the scene, including a bear is chained by the front door (B) at the left, birds in flight (K). The property is separated from the road in the foreground by a wicket fence, with a satircial armorial crest along the lower edge with portraits of Charles Christian and Skelton.
Satire on social pretensions: a view of a dilapidated cottage set into a garden behind a wooden fence, with a mock coat-of-arms at the bottom.–From variant state in the British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Reisen, Charles Christian, 1680-1725, printmaker.
  • Title: The western prospect of Bears-Den Hall in Co. Surrey [graphic].
  • Edition: [State without Greek motto at bottom of image].
  • Publication: [London] : [publisher not identified], [approximately 1720]

Catalog Record

720.00.00.106

Acquired November 2023

Collection of views and studies after nature with other subjects

frontispiece

Leaf [1], title page plate; leaves [2]-[29] with plates numbered 1-36 with scenes cottages and views of rural areas; leaves [30]-[34] with plates 37-44 with images of allegorical and mythical figures; leaf [35] with plate numbered 45, a woman with a tub; leaf [36] with plates 46-47 two men in profile; leaf [37] with plate 47, a portrait of “T.K. [that is, Thomas Kirgate] Painted & etch’d by EE. Finish’d by I. Hall”; leaf [38] with plates 49-50 with classical motifs, cherubs and scrollwork; leaf [39] with plate 51, sea creatures and syrens.
Many plates signed “E.E.’ and dated 1784-1790.

  • Printmaker: Edwards, Edward, 1738-1806, printmaker.
  • Title: Collection of views and studies after nature with other subjects / designed and etched by Edward Edwards Associate and teacher of perspective in the Royal Academy, London.
  • Publication: [London] : [publisher not identified], 1790.
  • Manufacture: [1794].

Catalog Record

Quarto 75 Ed96 794

Acquired December 2023

A king-fisher

description below

“George IV sits on a small stone among tall bulrushes at the water’s edge in profile to the left, fishing, his rod being a sceptre. Leaning forward, he looks anxiously at his tautening line. On his head is poised a small but massive crown, a creel hangs at his back; he wears quasi-military dress, white gauntlet gloves, and breeches with jack-boots (cf. British Museum Satires No. 14220). In the foreground, looking up at him, is a kingfisher. In the background, at the water’s edge, is a small thatched peasant’s cottage behind which is Windsor Castle, on its wooded hill, flying the Royal Standard (cottage and castle being mere symbols). Below the title is a circular garter inscribed Honi. Soit. Qui. Mal. Y. Pense.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Title: A king-fisher [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Fairburn, Broadway, Ludgate Hill, May 1826.

Catalog Record

836.05.00.01+

Acquired September 2023

The march of interlect

description below

“Caricature with a family of a working man, his wife and daughter dressed in fashionable clothes, with a cottage and pig on a dung-hill in the background.”–British Museum online catalogue.
A satire on the aspirations of the working classes. The affluently dressed dustman’s wife asks her husband if he has seen the latest issue of ‘La Bells Ass-emblee’ (John Bell’s La Belle Assemblée, or Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine).

 

  • Printmaker: Marks, John Lewis, printmaker.
  • Title: The march of interlect, or, A dust-man & family of the 19th century [graphic] / Marks fect.
  • Publication: London : Published by J.L. Marks, 17 Artillery St., Bishopsgate, [approximately 1824]

Catalog Record

824.00.00.64

Acquired November 2022

Gentleman escorting a young woman to a waiting carriage

description below

A gentleman leads a young woman and her mother (or chaperone) to the door of a carriage, held open by the coach driver who wears a top hat and a peculiar grin. In the background is a house or inn with a partially drawn figure (in ink) watching or emerging from the door. On the verso, pencil sketches of two men in top hats, and a smaller figure lightly sketched with a top hat in black ink.

 

  • Creator: Cruikshank, George, 1792-1878, artist.
  • Title: [Gentleman escorting a young woman to a waiting carriage] [art original] / Geo. Cruikshank.
  • Production: [England], [1830s?]

Catalog Record

Drawings C889 no. 9 Box D115

Acquired November 2022

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

Click for larger image

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