763 R691 841
Acquired November 2019
Portrait of Daniel Lambert; whole length, seated facing front; wearing striped waistcoat, breeches and jacket; his hat and his right hand resting on a table at the left.
812.00.00.124
Acquired September 2019
“Pushed by Knighton and pulled by Lady Conyngham, George IV, more corpulent than in other prints, walks in an ornate circular stand or support on castors (as used for toddling children, cf. British Museum satires no. 7497) towards Virginia Water (right), his fishing-rod against his shoulder. He wears a hat with a wide curving brim inscribed á la Townsend [cf. British Museum satires no. 10293], double-breasted tail-coat, breeches, and pumps; his right arm rests on the ring of the stand, in his hand is a small book: Old Izack [Walton]. From the stand dangles an ornate reticule: Fish Bag; the base is decorated with two fat squatting mandarins. Lady Conyngham looks over her right shoulder at the King, puffing from her effort, but singing Rule Britannia; the crossbar at which she tugs is a sceptre. She wears an enormous ribbon-trimmed bonnet and décolletée dress; the hook from the King’s line has caught in her dress which strains across her vast posterior as she leans forward. Knighton wears a court-suit with bag-wig and sword. He pushes with both hands with great concentration, singing, Send him Victorious. In his coat-pocket are a clyster-pipe and a paper: Petition of the Unborn Babes. A signpost terminating in a realistic hand points To Virginia Water. There is a background of trees and water.”–British Museum online catalogue.
827.06.27.01+
Acquired March 2019
“The Duchess of St. Albans, immensely fat, florid, and bejewelled, and a stout elderly naval officer wearing loose wide trousers, and apparently doing hornpipe steps, his hands on his hips, dance side by side with rollicking abandon. The others of the set: one man and two ladies on the left and one lady and two men on the right dance rigidly erect, and watch the central pair with hauteur; the men are dandies, the women slim and fashionable. The duchess has a swirling paradise-plume in her towering loops of hair, above tossing ringlets.”–British Museum online catalogue.
829.05.00.08+
Acquired October 2018
“George IV drives Lady Conyngham in a four-wheeled pony-chaise. He is chubbily obese, in loose trousers and braided jacket, wearing a cap poised on his naturalistic curls (cf. British Museum Satires no. 14637). He turns to the enormously corpulent lady. Both overweight the little chaise, and the very small ponies strain desperately. Behind and on the extreme left is the head of the horse ridden by an attendant. They have just passed a gate with a small octagonal lodge. The drive is bordered by a paling; in the background are stags.”–British Museum online catalogue.
824.03.28.01+
Acquired October 2018
“Louis XVIII, grotesquely obese (left), and the Tsar kiss, their lips touching. Louis, whose head is much the larger, grasps the back of Alexander’s head; the Tsar bends from the waist to reach beyond the King’s paunch. Louis, with the gouty legs and old-fashioned gold-embroidered coat and waistcoat of English caricature, wears the order of the Saint Esprit. The Tsar, in uniform, has the high pinched waist and bulging breast of the dandy (cf. British Museum Satires No. 13029) with enormous cavalry boots to the thigh, huge epaulets, and a sash, but no sword. He says: “My Dear Legitimate Brother (tho I believe I call Boney the same) I am happy to serve you tho your cursed Country Men almost destroyed my country–” Louis answers: “Ma Chere [sic] Ami, I am so rejoiced at your Brotherly Kindness in putting off our payment & takeing off your Troops that I could Devour you.” The embrace is watched by two Frenchmen on the left, and on the right by the King of Prussia, the Emperor of Austria, and a young man (? Napoleon’s son). Frederick William wears dandified uniform like that of the Tsar but with long trousers; he supports a large sword hanging from a belt, and holds a huge cocked hat; he watches the embrace with distaste, saying, “I am obliged to follow the Leaders at Present.” Francis I says: “I must agree for the moment but I have a Grandson.” One Frenchman wears uniform with top-boots; he says: “De Legitimate francais be too much for John Bull de manoeuvre by Gar ve want de Time & we show dem vat ve intend.” His companion, an elderly man wearing a court suit with a powdered wig (Richelieu attended the Conference on behalf of France) says delightedly: “Ah-ha he do him vid Compliments & den we do them out of the Money.” Behind them is a row of melancholy knock-kneed Grenadiers.”–British Museum online catalogue.
818.11.18.01+
Acquired October 2018
“A muzzled bear sits up, as if begging, on a fat woman who lies on her back. She says: “Gemini! what a Weight! my poor dear Mr Dripping was quite a Feather to him”. The bear’s keeper (right) raises his club, saying, “Down Bruin! I’ll teach you to ride the high Horse”. A dog (right) springs towards the bear. A man (left) runs off, saying, “D——m me I’ll be off! . . . [etc.]”.”–British Museum online catalogue.
801.12.20.03
Acquired November 2017
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.”
794.12.25.02+
Acquired May 2017
An obese, angry-faced man in a night cap sits in a chair in glaring out the window, his two gouty feet propped up on a pillow and his arms both also bandaged and the right arm in a sling. He is wearing a night cap and a heavy, lined robe; a cane rests against the arm of his upholstered chair. On the table to his right and on the floor to his left are many bottles of medicine with labels. Behind him on the wall is a framed picture of a volcano. decorating three panes of glass are sprigs of holly (?) with red berries.
832.12.00.01
Acquired March 2018
“Lady Buckinghamshire, enormously fat, is seated in profile to the right in an open chariot which sinks through a rectangular aperture in front of the Weigh-House, its weight being too great for the apparatus for weighing wagons. She throws up her arms and one leg, dropping her whip and reins. The hind legs of the plunging horses are in the pit; they snort wildly; the chariot and horses resemble those of Phaeton burlesqued. On the chariot is an oval escutcheon with four quarterings (cards, dice, wine-bottle, and glass) and the letter ‘B’. On the right (behind) are two street-lamps on tall pyramidal posts.”–British Museum online catalogue.
Catalog Record and Digital Collection
797.03.14.01+
Acquired November 2016