The wedding day

“The fat, moustached, Duchess of St. Albans and the slim Duke dance with vigour and agility, each poised on the left toe, arms interlaced, and hands meeting above their heads. From the Duchess’s small coronet rise giant ostrich feathers which curve above the heads of both and above which a big ducal coronet is suspended. He sings: My Wife shall dance, And I will sing so merry we’ll pass this_ day. She: For I hold it one of the wisest things to drive dull care away–. The musicians are two cynical cupids; one (left) sits on large sacks of sovereigns inscribed Cash; coins pour from a slit in a sack and lie on the carpet with a banker’s money-scoop. He fiddles: Money in both pockets. The other (right), seated on the apex of a huge melon from which a slice has been cut, plays bagpipes: And auld Robin Gray [Coutts] was a gued Old Man to me! with variations.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • PrintmakerHeath, Henry, active 1824-1850, printmaker.
  • TitleThe wedding day [graphic] / H. Heath delt
  • Publication[London] : [publisher not identified], published June 28, 1827.

Catalog Record 

827.06.28.01+

Acquired April 2017

The muse so oft her silver harp has strung …

Click for larger image

An elderly man plays his harp on a hillside surrounded by couples and children. In the distance are mountains and a tower.
Title from the first line of the four-line poem printed below the image.Title continues: “… That not a mountain rears his head unsung. And many an amorous, many a humourous lay, which many a bard had changed many a day.”

Frontispiece to: Jones, E. Bardic Museum. Musical and poetical relicks of the Welsh Bards, v. 2. London : For the author, 1802

  • Printmaker: Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827, printmaker.
  • Title: “The muse so oft her silver harp has strung …” [graphic] / the figures drawn by Ibbetson, and the landscape by J. Smith ; etched by Rowlandson.
  • Published: [London] : Published according to act of Parliament Feb. 20, 1802 by Ed. Jones, in Lord Steward’s Court-Yard, St. James’s Place, [20 February 1802]

Catalog Record & Digital Collection

802.02.20.01+

Acquired April 2013