Full half-length portrait of a young woman, directed slightly to right, facing and looking to front, head inclined to left; wearing a bonnet and a cloak; hands holding a tray of oysters.
786.04.01.13+
Acquired April 2023
The diary seemingly kept by a senior servant, one entry referring to a return to London ‘on account my master’s illness’ in which he records his journey and stops along the route to London. He provides a detailed account of the Gordon Riots with almost daily entries from June 2 to June 10th. Several entries 1783 reference severe storms and the appearance of the 1783 Great Meteor on August 18: “A ball of fire was seen passing along the air about 1/2 past nine in the evening. It was seen about the same time at Ostend.” Two entries in August and December report the executions of criminals at Newgate Prison including that of the engraver William Wynne Ryland. On October 6th, the author notes that “peace was proclaimed at the usual places in the city, and at Westminster, with the usual solemnity.” On 7 March 1783 he notes that “Sukey & Fanny Green inoculated for the Small Pox.” The bulk of the later entries in the diary, except for the occasional mention of social events, trips, and the occasional extreme weather, focus on the births, baptisms, deaths, and marriages of his social circle and concludes with a series of poems on death, marriage, and conduct of life.
LWL Mss Vol. 283
Acquired April 2023
“A pretty young maidservant stands on a doorstep (right) while a man, Irish in appearance, gazes insinuatingly into her face as he fills her bowl with brick-dust from a jar. He has an ass which stands patiently, a double sack pannier-wise across his back and a second jar or measure standing on the sack. The profile of a shrewish old woman looks through the door at the couple, who are intent on each other. A dog barks at the girl. Behind is a street, the nearer houses tall the farther ones lower and gabled. At the doorway opposite a woman appears to be giving food to a poor woman and child. A man and woman lean from the attic windows of adjacent houses to converse. A little chimney-sweep emerges from a chimney, waving his brush.”–British Museum online catalogue.
799.02.20.03+
Acquired April 2023
763 812 W687
Acquired April 2023
File 74 815 L832+
Acquired April 2023
View of Brighton, the town with numerous houses and other buildings, St. Nicholas’s Church on the hill above the town to the right, the coast stretching away in the distance, windmills in the fields to the left with haywains drawn by oxen and reapers at their work amongst the crops to the right, elegant ladies and gentlemen strolling through the scene with a man sketching to the left, several boats and ships on the calm sea beyond, gulls amongst the clouds above. The Royal Arms below.
Drawer 765.00.00.95
Acquired April 2023
A man in ragged clothes stands facing right, hunched forward under the weight of a basket of ‘Rents’ and ‘Taxes’ strapped to his back. His legs are shackled, his mouth is closed by a padlock, and his hands are tied behind him. Image enclosed within a circle.
796.00.00.61
Acquired April 2023
“A very fat and jovial volunteer, dressed as a light horseman, holds ln his left hand a pole on which is the head of Napoleon in profile to the right. and wearing a huge cocked hat decorated with plumes, tricolour cockade, gold lace, and tassels. The hand that holds the pole holds also, by the hair, a bunch of bleeding heads which form a grisly garland round it. In his right hand is his sabre. He is surrounded by women; two embrace him, others hasten up; he swaggers with raised left leg, saying, “There you rouges, there! there’s the Boney Part – twenty more killed them!! twenty more killed them too!! I have destroyed half the Army with this same Toledo.” The women say, respectively: “Bless the Warrior that saved our Virgin charms”; “take care I’ll smother him with Kisses”; “Oh! what frightful Heads how ravishing they look, – they would have used us ill I am sure”; “ha ha, thats, that great man little Boney, how glum he looks.” An elderly spinster exclaims: “ah bless him he has saved us from Death and Vileation.” A handsome woman turns to a tall young man in civilian dress on the extreme left, saying, “There you Poltroon look how that noble Hero’s Caressed!” He turns away, saying, “Ods Niggins I wish I had been a Soldier too then the Girls would have run after me – but I never could bear the smell of Gun powder”.”–British Museum online catalogue.
803.08.01.01+
Acquired April 2023
“A wealthy middle class family gathered in a room, the father standing in the centre, leaning on the back of a chair which his youngest child stands upon, embracing him, a son standing beside pointing to an open book and the mother sitting at left, gazing to right while another daughter beside plays with a kitten, a bird in a cage on table beside; at right an older son looks out anxiously at the ships on river beyond, his coat over his arm..”–British Museum online catalogue.
799.09.29.01++
Acquired April 2023
“View of a cascade, with figures on a fallen tree in the left foreground, the river beyond. 1761, probably a later re-publication.”–British Museum online catalogue.
768.00.00.17++
Acquired April 2023