Buck metamorphos’d

description below

“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.

  • Printmaker: Smith, Gabriel, 1724-1783, printmaker, artist.
  • Title: Buck metamorphos’d, or, Mr. Foote in the character of the Englishman return’d from Paris [graphic] / drawn & engrav’d by Gabl. Smith.
  • Publication: London : Printed for John Ryall & Robt. Withy, at Hogarth’s Head in Fleet Street, [ca. 1756]

Catalog Record

756.00.00.99+

Acquired January 2021

French privateers, cruising in the English Channel

description below“Six French émigrés are grouped at the roadside beside a signpost (right) pointing (left) to ‘London’ and (right) to ‘Dover’. A lean and elderly woman holding a clipped poodle stands with her left hand in the arm of a man wearing a cocked hat with a tricolour cockade, and a long coat reaching almost to his ankles; he holds a tasselled cane. Next him is a stout man wearing a long cloak, and a boy or dwarfish man. On the right are two women holding large muffs. A second clipped poodle runs beside them. In the background a coach (right) inscribed ‘London Dover Canterbury’ is driving towards London with outside passengers; one, a sailor, waves his hat. The gable end of a cottage (left) and trees complete the background.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Title: French privateers, cruising in the English Channel [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Printed for & sold by Carington Bowles, No. 69 St. Paul’s Church Yard, London, published as the act directs, 4 June 1792.

Catalog Record 

792.06.04.01+

Acquired November 2019

Put your finger in foxes hole, fox is not at home

Woman holding a giant muff

A pretty young woman carries an enormous fur muff above her head. A key hangs from a string around her neck.

  • Title: Put your finger in foxes hole, fox is not at home [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. Jany. 1st, 1787, by J. Wicksteed, No. 30 Henrietta Str., Covent Garden, [1 January 1787]

Catalog Record 

787.01.01.11

Acquired February 2019

 

Christmass boxes

A satire, divided into quarters, with four small scenes of different episodes of persons trying to collect their Christmas boxes. In the first square in the upper left, a plump supplicant in an apron holds out his hat to a scowling-faced man with a kerchief tied over his hat and a walking stick under his arm as they meet in a road outside a building with a lamp. Behind him on the wall is a sign posted “Miser’. In response to the request, the miser says “Give you a Christmass box. Curse you don’t I pay you for your meat.” On the top row, right, a thin man (a grave digger?) with a pipe in his mouth, bows to an obese clergyman, with a fat dog at his heel, as they stand in the graveyard of a church. The gravedigger asks, “Most worthy Parson give me a Christmass box.” The Parson replies, “Give you a halter you rascal. What should I give you a Christmass box for.” In the lower left, clergyman shakes his walking stick at a surprised man who is carrying a large box on his back and secured with a strap over his forehead. The clergyman says to the laborer, “If you ever ask me for a Christmass box again, I’ll physic you to death.” They are standing in front of building with a lantern and sign that reads “Gargle Apothycary.” The fourth square, lower right, shows old, hag-faced woman with a hat and muff standing in a parlor as she slaps the face of an astonished footman. She tells him, “Take that you saucy rascal for a Xmass box!” He replies, “What’s that for. I did not want a box on the ear, not I.”

  • PrintmakerNewton, Richard, 1777-1798, printmaker, artist.
  • TitleChristmass boxes [graphic] / drawn & etchd. by Rd. Newton.
  • PublicationLondon : Pubd. by Wm. Holland, 50 Oxford St., Decemr. 25, 1794.

Catalog Record 

794.12.25.02+

Acquired May 2017