“View overlooking gardens, showing a band playing from the orchestra on the right; elegantly dressed figures strolling through gardens or seated at tables amongst trees; head-piece illustration to ‘The Musical Entertainer’, p. 21; with the score of a song below, all printed from the same plate.”–British Museum catalogue.
- Printmaker: Bickham, George, 1706?-1771, printmaker.
- Title: Rural beauty, or, Vaux-Hal Garden / the words by Mr. Lockman ; set by Mr. Boyce ; Bickham sc.
- Publication: [London] : [G. Bickham], [1737?]
737.00.00.04
Acquired February 2022
Fashionably dressed ladies and gentlemen stand or sit in small groups conversing the elegant saloon at the Marine Pavilion designed by Henry Holland.
A crowd, gathered in the courtyard under the sign of The George Inn on the route to Brighton, examine a horse seemingly under auction; a man in the doorway holds up a hammer. People look out at the scene from the windows of the inn. Two men converse with a woman to the left as her dog looks at the scene; a traveler with a pack and walking stick sits on a stoop to adjust his shoe.
A coach pulling up to the Post Station, the Cock Inn at left, on route to Brighton. The coach is pulling into the court yard, about to pass under a wooden gate bearing the inn’s sign, while another coach stands at the inn door. People look down from the second story windows. A man waits at the mile marker in front of another building at right. In the foreground to left, a man with a wooden leg carries a small child on his back as he leads a donkey that carries a woman and two children, one of whom appears to be nursing, the other in a basket that hangs over the donkey. Their dog follows behind.
A young woman picking apples is watched by a youth who hides behind the tree and bushes on the right, his right hand over his heart; more trees in the background and the edge of a thatched cottage to left and a stream in the distance, right.
“Rural scene with two couples dancing on the left while a man pipes and plays a drum under a tree on the right, and another couple watch at a table in front of him, smoking and drinking; village in the background.”–British Museum online catalogue.
