Do you want any brick-dust

description below

“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.

  • Printmaker: Merke, Henri, printmaker.
  • Title: Do you want any brick-dust [graphic] / Rowlandson delin. ; Merke sculp.
  • Publication: London : Pub. Feb. 20, 1799, at R. Ackermann’s, 101 Strand, [20 February 1799]

Catalog Record

799.02.20.03+

Acquired April 2023

Wellington’s Victory or Battle of Vittoria

illustrated title page with drawing of man in a uniform

  • Creator: Logier, J. B. (Johann Bernhard), 1777-1846, composer.
  • Title: Wellington’s Victory, or, Battle of Vittoria, a grand military Sonata for the Piano Forte, etc. / Composed & dedicated to Field Marshal the Marquis Wellington by J.B. Logier.
  • Publication: Dublin : Published at I.B. Logier’s Music Saloon, 27 Lower Sackville Str. and to be had of Messrs. Penson Robertson & Co., Edinburgh, [1813?]

Catalog Record

File 74 815 L832+

Acquired April 2023

A perspective view of Brighthelmston

description below

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.

  • Printmaker: Canot, Pierre Charles, 1710-1777, printmaker.
  • Title: A perspective view of Brighthelmston, and of the sea coast as far as the Isle of Wight [graphic] : Inscribed (by permission) to His Royal Highness William Henry Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, Earl of Connaught of the Kingdom of Ireland, Ranger of Hampton Court Park, and Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter – by His Royal Highnesses most obedt. & devoted servt. James Lambert / Jas. Lambert pinxt. ; P.C. Canot sculpt.
  • Publication: [London] ; [Lewes] : Publish’d as the act directs, & sold by Jas. Lambert, painter, at Lewes in Sussex, and Robert Sayer, map and printseller, No. 53 Fleet Street, London, [approximately 1765]

Catalog Record

Drawer 765.00.00.95

Acquired April 2023

A free born Englishman!!!

description below

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.

  • Printmaker: Spence, William, -1797, printmaker.
  • Title: free born Englishman!!! [graphic] : The glory of civilized life & the envy of Indian nations! / W. Spence 1796.
  • Publication: [London] : Publishd. by T. Spence, Turn Stile, Holborn, [1796]

Catalog Record

796.00.00.61

Acquired April 2023

The consequence of invasion, or, The hero’s reward

description below

“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.

  • Printmaker: Williams, Charles, active 1797-1830, printmaker.
  • Title: The consequence of invasion, or, The hero’s reward [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. August 1st, 1803, by S.W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly, [1 August 1803]

Catalog Record

803.08.01.01+

Acquired April 2023

Conjugal affection

description below

“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.

  • Printmaker: Thew, Robert, 1758-1802, printmaker.
  • Title: Conjugal affection [graphic] : from the original picture presented to the city by Aldn. Boydell / painted by Robt. Smirke R.A. ; engraved by Robt. Thew, Hist. Engraver to H.R.H the Prince of Wales.
  • Publication: [London] : Pub. Sept. 29, 1799, by J. & J. Boydell, No. 90 Cheapside, and at the Shakspeare Gallery, Pall Mall, London, [29 September 1799]

Catalog Record

799.09.29.01++

Acquired April 2023

A view of the Great Cohoes Falls, on the Mohawk River

description below

“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.

  • Printmaker: Elliot, William, 1727-1766, printmaker.
  • Title: A view of the Great Cohoes Falls, on the Mohawk River [graphic] : the fall about seventy feet, the river near a quarter of a mile broad = Vue de la Grande Cataracte de Cohoes, sur la Riviere des Mohawks : la hateur est l’environ 70 pieds, 1 sa riviere a pres l’un quart de mile de large / sketch’d on the spot by His Excellency Governor Pownal ; painted by Paul Sandby, & engraved by Wm. Elliot.
  • Publication: London : Printed for John Bowles at No. 13 in Cornhill, Robert Sayer at No. 53 in Fleet Street, Thos. Jefferys the corner of St. Martins Lane in the Strand, Carington Bowles at No. 69 in St. Pauls Chruch Yard, and Henry Parker at No. 82 in Cornhill, [between 1768 and 1771]

Catalog Record

768.00.00.17++

Acquired April 2023

Scarcity in India

description below

“Two sailors are bargaining with a scantily clad Indian girl with a basket of fruit. Although pineapples were luxury goods at this time, the mirror, and in particular the watch offered by the seaman on the left represent a disproportionately high price for the fruit. The girl’s hairstyle resembles a pineapple reinforcing the point that she is the object of their attention rather than her wares. The two men are dressed in their shore-going clothes with buckled shoes and silk stockings. They wear baggy cotton trousers and short jackets. The sleeve of the left-hand sailor has a mariner’s cuff outlined in white piping and his wool jacket has metal buttons, which are probably made of brass. He wears a straw hat and his hair is done in a pigtail or queue. Both men have large silk neckerchiefs probably originating in India. Sailor’s dress was much the same in the merchant service and the navy. There was no uniform for the lower ranks at this time.”–Collections online, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

  • Printmaker: Knight, Charles, 1743-1827?, printmaker.
  • Title: Scarcity in India [graphic] / painted by H. Singleton ; engraved by C. Knight.
  • Publication: [London] : Published Jan. 1st, 1794, by C. Knight at Wm. Bonds, No. 98 Charlotte Street, Rathbone Place, London, [1 January 1794]

Catalog Record

794.01.01.11++

Acquired April 2023

The Holy Alliance unmasked

description below

Satire depicting the The Quintuple Alliance (Tsar Alexander I of Russia, Napoleon Bonaparte, Francis I, Emperor of Austria, Louis Antoine de Bourbon, duc d’Angoulême and the Duke of Wellington) debating the question of the Spanish succession and French intervention in Spain at the 1822 Congress of Verona. Losers in the negotiation are depicted as tiny doll-like figures trampled under the table. Masks are scattered on the floor and animal symbolism includes a bear, a monkey and a pair of bulldogs.

  • Printmaker: Purcell, E. (Edward), printmaker.
  • Title: The Holy Alliance unmasked [graphic] / E. Purcell.
  • Publication: [London] : Published Feb. 1823 by J. Dickinson, 114 New Bond St., [February 1823]

Catalog Record

823.02.00.01+

Acquired April 2023