Portrait, three-quarter length, sitting facing front, right elbow resting on a table, left hand holding a rabbit in her lap, wearing plain clothes, an apron, knotted scarf around her neck and small white cap, looking away to left; after Laguerre.
810.01.01.01
Acquired January 2021
53 D544 827
Acquired January 2021
“Copy of a room in the Fleet Prison; Tom sits at a table, to left, on which is a rejection letter from John Rich to whom he has submitted a play; his wife clenches her fists, the gaoler asks for garnish money and a boy asks payment for a tankard of ale; to left, Sarah Young has fainted and is being administered smelling salts by one woman while another slaps her hand, her child clings to her skirt; she is supported by an older man with a beard who has dropped a sheet containing a scheme for paying the national debt (a reference to such a scheme put forward by Hogarth’s father); in the background an alchemist works at a forge.”–British Museum online catalogue.
Hogarth 735.07.00.01+ Box 200
Acquired January 2021
A copy of the second print in William Hogarth’s series “Four Times of the Day”: Set outside St Giles’s-in-the-Fields. On the right an elegant crowd leaves the French Huguenot church; they are dressed in the height of French fashion. Two women kiss on the far right in the customary French way. They are contrasted with Londoners on the left. The two groups are separated by a gutter down the middle of the road; a dead cat lies in the gutter foreground. The Londoners stand outside a tavern with the sign of the Good Woman (one without a head); a woman and man in the second-storey window look surprised as the contents of her bowl are tossed out the window. In the foreground, left, under a sign with John the Baptist’s head on a platter and reading “Good Eating”, a black man embraces a servant girl and a small boy (evidently intended by his curly red hair to be identified as one of the Irish inhabitants of the area) cries because he has broken a pie-dish. A little girl squats as she eats the fallen pie off the ground. The clock in the steeple in the background reads 12:30.
Hogarth 797.10.01.03++ Box 310
Acquired January 2021
A German copy of Hogarth’s “The Discovery” (1743?): a scene in a bedoom where four gentlemen stand beside a curtained bed in which a black woman reclines; she reaches out to touch the chin of one of the men who has evidently just pulled back the curtain. The scene is thought to record a practical joke carried out on the lothario John Highmore by his friends: having arranged an assignation with an attractive young woman, they replaced her with a black prostitute. When he discovered the swap, on climbing into bed, they appeared from hiding. See Paulson.
Hogarth 830.00.00.01 Box 140
Acquired January 2021
Portrait of the elderly Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, whole length, sitting on a chair, its back carved with a scallop shell; he holds a book in his right hand with his left hand in his waistcoat. To his right is a small side table with a quill pen in ink bottle and along the wall shelves of books.
746.00.00.31
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
Includes essays, anecdotes, selections reprinted from other journals such as The Monitor and the continuation of The North Briton; with a ‘Historical memoir’ in each issue including domestic and foreign news, prices of stocks, bankrupts; with poetry selections.
Intended as a supplement to the Birmingham Register newspaper. Published in alternate weeks as a companion to the Coventry Museum.
61 B619
Acquired January 2021
63 809 M939
Acquired January 2021
“Portrait of Samuel Foote in character; whole length, standing, wearing the latest ‘French’ fashions, including large fur muff, wig with pointed sides, mis-matched tights, and coat with over-sized cuffs; his outfit is scrutinized by two English gentlemen to the right; two men in background, one preparing a hat, bending over a dressing table with mirror.”–British Museum online catalogue.
On the back wall are two large framed pictures, both with scenes from mythology. On the left, Apollo with bow and arrow pursues Daphne who has begun the turn into a laurel tree. On the right, Leda and the swan.
756.00.00.99+
Acquired January 2021