Amusements des Anglais à Paris

description below

“A grossly obese John Bull and his lean and ugly wife, both wearing hats, sit on upright chairs, gormandizing. The man holds a whole chicken to his mouth, taking a huge bite. The woman (left) faces him, biting a large melon which she holds with both hands to an enormous mouth. He is morosely savage, she is melancholy; both are gap-toothed. On the ground (right) by the man’s chair are collected a ham or gigot, a large irregular (?) galantine, a raised pie: ‘pâté de périgueux’, a huge jar of ‘vin de lafitte’ round which four bottles are grouped: ‘frontignac’, ‘Clos de Vouge[ot]’, and ‘. . . seac’. Beside the woman are a basket and tray filled with grapes, peaches, and pears. Through a wide doorway (left) the street is seen with a seated fruit-seller who serves three grotesquely hideous Englishwomen. Two are lank and emaciated, one tries to stuff a big peach into an immense mouth, holding an armful of grapes and peaches; the other gnaws at a bunch of grapes held in both hands. The third, also with bulging cheeks, bites a peach. The fruit-seller’s tray is empty; she holds out her last peach. All the women wear small absurd hats or caps, tight long-waisted bodices (coloured) with long white skirts (cf. No. 12359).”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Title: Amusements des Anglais à Paris [graphic].
  • Publication: A Paris : Chez Martinet, Libraire, Rue de Coq St. Honoré, [between 1814 and 1815]

Catalog Record

814.11.00.01

Acquired April 2024

Iohny Mac-Cree in the dumps!!

description below

“Two elderly Scots discuss the Melville case; one, wearing old-fashioned court dress with a sword, takes snuff from the other’s ram’s-horn mull; he says: “Touch the Sillar!!! – T’is a on disgrace on aw Scotland!” They have sly, twisted expressions. Melville (left), weeping, clutches the back of the speaker’s coat. He wears Highland dress, and says: “What my ain Countrymen turn their backs on me! then tis aw up with Johny Mac-cree [see British Museum Satires No. 10378]”. On the right, Pitt runs off furtively to the right, saying, “I must cut out this Connexion – & leave him to his fate”.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Cruikshank, Isaac, 1764-1811, printmaker.
  • Title: Iohny Mac-Cree in the dumps!! [graphic] / I. Ck.
  • Publication: [London] : Published April 12 – 1805 by S.W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly, London, [12 April 1805]

Catalog Record

805.04.12.02+

Acquired February 2024

A French emigrant cook begging for a slice of English beef

description below

A scene in a kitchen showing a French male cook on his knees beside a cross-looking female cook holding a spatula. In the background, a roaring fire in the hearth with a slab of beef on a spit.

  • Printmaker: Cruikshank, Isaac, 1764-1811, printmaker, artist.
  • Title: A French emigrant cook begging for a slice of English beef [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Publish’d 1st March 1794 by Robt. Sayer & Co., Fleet Street, London, [1 March 1794]

Catalog Record

794.03.01.04

Acquired September 2023

The Hombourg waltz, with characteristic sketches of family dancing!

description below

Members of the Royal Family at an informal dance, the centre couple being Princess Elizabeth, grotesquely stout, and the Prince of Hesse-Homburg, who grasps her dress, unable to reach her waist.

  • Printmaker: Cruikshank, George, 1792-1878, printmaker.
  • Title: The Hombourg waltz, with characteristic sketches of family dancing! [graphic] / Knahskiurc [that is, Cruikshank] fect.
  • Publication: London : Published May 4, 1818, by G. Humphrey, 27 St. James’s St., nephew & successor to the late Mrs. H. Humphrey, [4 May 1818]

Catalog Record

818.05.04.01

Acquired September 2023

The T trade in hot water!, or, A pretty kettle of fish!!!

description below

  • Printmaker: Cruikshank, George, 1792-1878, printmaker.
  • Title: The T trade in hot water!, or, A pretty kettle of fish!!! [graphic] : Dedicated to T. Canister & T. Spoon Esquires / G. Cruikshank fect.
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. Novr. 14th, 1818, by G. Humphrey, 27 St. James’s Street, [14 November 1818]

Catalog Record

818.11.14.01+

Acquired February 2024

Political cartoons relating to reform in Great Britain and the United States

description below

A series of crude (and in some cases explicitly racist) lithographed cards numbered 1-16, with scenes relating to political reform on both sides of the Atlantic. On British side, they cover the reforms to the franchise made by the 1832 Reform Act, poking fun at ‘poor distress’d turn’d out Boroughmongers’ (No. 1), the rural squirearchy (No. 7), Taxes (No. 9), the established Church (No. 10) and Irishmen (no. 12), among others. United States political issues are shown in the second card which reuses – with added racist slurs – the design of Edward Williams Clay (1799-1857) entitled ‘Hurrah! hurrah for Genl. Jackson!!’ under the caption ‘Life in Philadelphia’. Cards nos. 4 and 7, with yet more overt racism, use references to American segregationism to caricature British political positions.

  • Title: [Political cartoons relating to reform in Great Britain and the United States] [graphic].
  • Publication: [York, England] : W.F. Wodson, lith., Pavement, York, [approximately 1832]

Catalog Record

724 832 P769

Acquired July 2023

Changing horses at Clermont

description below

A single-horse carriage is stopped in front of a rustic inn or roadhouse, with two caricatured Frenchmen (one a postillion wearing enormous boots) engaged in changing out the horse. An occupant of the carriage hands money out the window to a peasant woman holding an infant and accompanied by a young boy; two other shabbily dressed figures are nearby next to a tree, one of them playing a makeshift drum. In the doorway of the building stands a young woman, and to the left a man under an archway stands with arms crossed; both watch the scene unfold. In the background a postilion rides away on horseback, whip extended into the air.

  • Artist: Byron, Frederick George, 1764-1792, artist.
  • Title: [Changing horses at Clermont] [art original] / F.G. Byron.
  • Production: [France], [1790]

Catalog Record

Drawer Drawings B995 no. 1

Acquired June 2023

A new Chancery suit removed to the Scotch bar

description below

Print shows a Gretna Green marriage in an open-fronted smithy. Erskine, disguised in woman’s dress with a huge feathered bonnet over a barrister’s wig, holds the right hand of a demure-looking woman, modishly dressed and apparently pregnant. He holds a paper: ‘Breach of Promise’. With them are three young children. The smith wears Highland dress; he holds a red-hot bar on the anvil and raises his hammer, saying, “I shall make a good thing of this Piece at last.” Erskine says: “I have bother’d the Courts in London many times, I’ll now try my hand at the Scotch Bar–as to Miss C– she may do her worst since I have got my Letters back.” The woman says: “Now who dare say, Blacks the White of my Eye.” In the background (right) a young woman rushes down a slope towards the smithy, shouting, “Oh Stop Stop Stop, false Man, I will yet seek redress tho you have got back your letters–” Beside her is a sign-post pointing ‘To Gretna Green’. A little boy with Erskine’s features, wearing tartan trousers, stands on tip-toe to watch the smith; on the ground beside him is a toy (or emblem), a cock on a pair of breeches. A little girl stands by her mother nursing a doll fashionably dressed as a woman, but with Erskine’s profile. Another boy with a toy horse on a string stands in back view watching ‘Miss C’. Behind the smith is the furnace; on the wall hang many rings: ‘Rings to fit all Hands.’

 

  • Printmaker: Cruikshank, Robert, 1789-1856, printmaker.
  • Title: A new Chancery suit removed to the Scotch bar, or, More legitimates [graphic] / I.R.C. fecit.
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. Feby. 4th, 1819, by S.W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly & 312 Oxford Street, [4 February 1819]

Catalog record

819.02.04.01+

Acquired November 2022

Iohn Bull makeing a naval enqury

description below

“John Bull, as a burly and ugly sailor, sits enthroned (right), listening to Melville’s plea of innocence. Melville, in Highland dress, and wearing a feathered bonnet, stands in profile to the right. with clasped hands and flexed knees; he says: “Indeed Mr Bull – I knaw nae more aboot it – than Johnny Groat o’the Highlands.” Trotter lurks behind him (left) furtively twitching his superior’s kilt, and jerking his thumb to the left.; he says: “Take my advice – and let us Trot off while we are well, he looks confounded inquisitive.” John scowls and glares pugnaciously, saying, “Why Look ye – de ye see – I dont come for to go for to say – exactly, that you sack’d the cole – all I say is the Shiners set sail – and as you had the care of the Hatches – it is, likely, you should know what Port they steer’d into! I say let’s look at your log book Old one.” He wears striped trousers and a knotted scarf; in his hat is a tobacco-pipe. His chair stands on a dais and is decorated with a crowned anchor and dolphins.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Williams, Charles, active 1797-1830, printmaker.
  • Title: Iohn Bull makeing [sic] a naval enqury [sic] [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. April 1st, 1805, by S.W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly, [1 April 1805]

Catalog Record

805.04.01.01+

Acquired April 2023

The camelopard, or, A new hobby

description below

“George IV sits jauntily astride a tall high-stepping giraffe, at the base of the neck, hands on hips. Lady Conyngham (left) sits sideways on the sloping back, close to the tail, her vast posterior projecting. She smiles over her shoulder. He wears a straw hat with wide curving brim. She is décolletée, with large gigot sleeves and feathers in her hair. Four Nubians (right) bow obsequiously.”–British Museum online catalogue.

 

  • Printmaker: Heath, William, 1795-1840, printmaker.
  • Title: The camelopard, or, A new hobby [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : [publisher not identified], [not before August 1827]

Catalog Record

827.08.00.01+

Acquired November 2022