File 763 802 D795+
Acquired April 2024
“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
832.00.00.53
Acquired April 2024
Engraved, with letterpress imprint and ornamental border and with a vignette above showing a street scene at night, with one man vomitting as he is supported by two companions. Across the street under a street light, a prostitute waves at the men.
File 66 858 M533
Acquired November 2022
Print shows an interior view of a room; a duke has arrived home drunk at 5 a.m. (as shown on the longcase clock beside the door) accompanied by two attendants and watchman only to find his bedchamber occupied by another man. Through the open curtains around the bed can be seen a bare-breasted duchess. On the floor near the bed is an open book, “Memoirs of a woman of pleasure” (a reference to John Cleland’s Fanny Hill …) beside the chamber pot. As the duke with sword drawn, staggers forward, his rival climbs through a window in the background, leaving his clothes behind on a chair. A monkey dashes onto the table near the window on the heels of the husband’s rival but pulls down the tablecloth causing the items on the table to be strewn across the floor in the foreground; a book opened to pages “Chastity in the nobility a farce. Dedicated to their Graces the Duke & Dutchess xxx”, breaking a broken mirror, and sending the bottles and jars onto the floor. The bottles have labels “Viper drops” and “Surfeit water” and the jar is labeled “Lip salve”.
769.05.01.01+
Acquired February 2022
“Plate from a pirated series of Hogarth’s Rake’s Progress, not based on one of the original prints: Covent Garden with St Paul’s church and the buildings at the north-western corner of the piazza; the Rake (here called Ramble) and drunken friends are accosting women passers-by and the watch has arrived to set about them with staves.”–British Museum online catalogue.
Hogarth 735.00.00.19+
Acquired January 2021
The musical score with lyrics of a drinking song “The jolly Bacchanalians” with a copy of William Hogarth’s “A midnight modern conversation” which shows a large party of men smoking, drinking, and singing around a table with a large bowl in the center. Several of the men are clearly intoxicated, one has fallen off his chair, lost his wig and is sprawled on the ground.
Hogarth 746.00.00.22 Box 105
Acquired January 2021
A copy of the fourth print in William Hogarth’s series “Four Times of the Day”, set at the intersection of Rummer Court and Charing Cross. Le Sueur’s equestrian statue of Charles I can be seen in the background. It is the anniversary of the Restoration of Charles II (29 May, known as “Oak Apple Day”). In the foreground a drunken freemason (probably the corrupt magistrate Sir Thomas De Veil) is supported by a serving man. Behind them a man pours gin into a keg. To the left a barber is seen at work through a window; each pane of the shop window contains a lit candle. From a window above the barber shop, a chamber pot is being emptied onto the top of a wooden shelter under which a man and woman sleep. Beside them, a link boy crouches as he blows on the flame of his torch. Behind and to the right of the freemason, the Salisbury Flying Coach has crashed and overturned while trying to avoid a bonfire in the middle of the street; the passengers reach out the window of the coach, alarmed looks on their faces.Two men look on, one of whom appears to be a butcher. Shop and tavern signs include the barber’s which is decorated with oak leaves and advertises “Shaving Bleeding & Teeth Drawn wth. a Touch Ecce Signum”; the Rummer Tavern; the Earl of Cardigan; and, the Bagnio and the New Bagnio.
Hogarth 798.02.01.01++ Box 310
Acquired January 2021
“A young dandy lounging on a sofa with a young woman, holding up a glass, while she lays one hand on his knee, holding a glass herself, her elbow on a round table beside a bottle of Madeira and a dish of peaches; a bed seen through the open door in the background to right.”–British Museum online catalogue.
795.06.18.01+
Acquired January 2021
Letterpress text with wood-engravings on either side of the title at head of sheet: on the left “Temperance and Happy Family” and on the right “Intemperance and Miserable Family”. Below the heading and on the upper half of the sheet, an explanation of a wood-engraving in the center entitled “The Drunkard’s Coat of Arms”. On the lower half of the sheet, a poem in four columns, surrounding another large central image of a drunken crowd, including a woman feeding her infant from a wine glass; the rowdy, celebrating in a room with a row of large barrels labeled “Holland, Brand[y], Rum, Old Tom, Cream of the Valley.”
833.00.00.16+
Acquired November 2020
A crowd of rotund stock brokers sit and stand around a table and against a wall with a clock. The broker centered in the front reads from a copy of the Gazette Extraordinary while some of the others peer over his shoulders looking for news, many where glasses and one uses a glass to read the print on the page. To his left at the table is a broker holding bank stock in his right hand, and another broker knocking over a bottle of Madeira at the table.
795.04.29.01+
Acquired December 2019