Keep within compass

description below

“A young woman stands within a compass inscribed ‘Fear God’, holding an open book inscribed ‘The Pleasures of Imagination Realized’. At her feet is an open chest full of guineas from which hang bank-notes and jewels; it is inscribed ‘The Reward of Virtue’. A small dog stands beside her. In the background (right) is a country house, on the left farm-buildings and haystacks. The four corners are filled … with the disasters which beset the woman who does not ‘keep within compass’. (1) A woman weeps dejectedly with cards and an empty purse on the ground at her feet. (2) A drunken woman lets an infant fall from her arms; on the wall is a torn print inscribed ‘Domestic Happiness’. (3) A woman is being conducted to the watch-house by two watchmen, one with his lantern, the other with a rattle. (4) She beats hemp in Bridewell, a man standing behind her with a whip, as in Hogarth’s ‘Harlot’s Progress’. …”–British Museum

  • Title: Keep within compass [graphic] : Prudence produceth esteem.
  • Publication: [London] : Printed for & sold by Bowles & Carver, No. 69 in St. Paul’s Church Yard, London, published as the act directs, [not after 1832]

Catalog Record

832.00.00.53

Acquired April 2024

Transformation playing cards

see description below

Three, carefully hand-drawn transformation cards. The Ace is a scene of calvarymen, one of whom holds a flag, turned to form a diamond shape that has been highlighted in red. The two of diamonds is a scene in a gothic nook of a cardinal reclining, his hands clasped and his feet crossed; his hat is one diamond and the second his pillow, both highlighted in red. The three of diamonds is an image of three men, shown half-length, all with beards and one with spectacles.

  • Title: [Transformation playing cards] [art original].
  • Production: [England], [approximately 1820]

Catalog Record

Drawings Un58 no. 100

Acquired March 2024

Beggar’s opera playing cards

cards mounted with photo corners onto 3 display boards, encapsulated in clear plastic, each board 40 x 54.5 cm

Each card shows music and lyrics from John Gay’s Beggar’s opera and a small standard playing card inset in the upper left corner; red suits with stencil colored pips; no tax stamp; maker’s details on king of clubs, 10 of spades and ace of hearts.

  • Printmaker: Bowles, Carington, 1724-1793, printmaker.
  • Title: [Beggar’s opera playing cards].
  • Publication: [London] : Printed for Carington Bowles, No. 69 in St. Pauls Church Yard, London, [approximately 1770]

Catalog Record

File 55 G25 S770++

Acquired June 2023

Reginald Heber book of poems and drawings

manuscript journal

A volume of comical poems and a play, “Blue Beard”, with 22 transformation cards that illustrate the themes with humorous images of characters performing various activities. Several depict barbers and their customers or other people in the act of grooming and taking medicines, which accompany “Van Evert the or Beelzebubs Barber, V. Vanevert the Dutch Buccaneer”. The poem “The Silver Ladle” is illustrated with a card with two women in a kitchen with a tea kettle. “Bill Bolton, the weaver”, a Scottish tale, illustrated with a pen and ink drawing of a funeral procession

 

  • Author: Heber, Reginald, 1783-1826.
  • Title: Reginald Heber book of poems and drawings : manuscript.
  • Production: England, circa 1815.

Catalog Record

LWL Mss Vol. 280

Acquired August 2022

Designs for Georgian playing cards

description below

Three playing cards, or transformation cards, drawn in pen and ink by an unidentified artist, showing caricatured figures using the shape of the pip, only hearts or diamonds (red watercolor) in this incomplete set. One of the cards (two hearts) features two gentlemen meeting. The other two cards (three of diamonds) feature a lady with a fan and two gentleman in one card; the other incomplete, has a lady with a fan and only one gentleman.

 

  • Title: [Designs for Georgian playing cards] [art original].
  • Production: [England], [between 1800 and 1820?]

Catalog Record

Drawings Un58 no. 96

Acquired August 2022

Designs for transformation playing cards

description below
description below

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four drawings, each depicting a different character with their face in the form of a heart: a man drinking; a man with a pipe; a violinist; and an elegant lady.
Eleven drawings, each depicting a different character with their face in the form of a heart: a man playing a flute; a dour-looking cleryman; a coachman; a vendor wearing a turban; a man in a tricorne hat; an obese man in an armchair with medicine on a side table; a man smoking a pipe. Also two cards wtih older woman clutching a blanket around her shoulders; a pretty young women with a highly decorated hat with feathers and her hands in a muff; and, a female ballad sheet vendor.

 

  • Artist: Dubuisson, Elizabeth, artist.
  • Title: [Designs for transformation playing cards] [art original].
  • Production: [England], [approximately 1830]

Catalog Record

Drawings D821 no. 1

Acquired December 2022

The perpetual almanack, or, Gentleman soldier’s prayer book

description below

Printed in two columns with a woodcut at the head of each column, and playing cards surrounding text.

  • Title: The perpetual almanack, or, Gentleman soldier’s prayer book : shewing how one Richard Middleton was taken before the Mayor of the City he was in, for using cards in church during Divine Service : being a droll, merry, and humurous account of an odd affair that happened to a private soldier, in the 60th Regiment of Foot.
  • Publication: [London] : J. Catnach, printer, 2 & 3, Monmouth-Court, 7 Dials, [1837 or 1838]

Catalog Record

File 68 837 P453+

Acquired June 2021

Collection of pictorial conundrum cards

collection of hand colored playing cardsA collection of pictorial conundrum cards from various unidentified sets of cards trimmed from larger sheets of etched images along with a single drawing signed “R. Ck.” suggesting it is his work on the largest set (incomplete) of 19 cards. The other four sets also incomplete are grouped by the similarity in style and letterforms. All cards contain a humorously named person with an image and a riddle. Presumably the sheet contained the answers to the riddles. Queen Victoria and Sir Edwin Eglinton (the Eglinton Tournament 1839) suggest the possible date of 1840.

  • Title: [Collection of pictorial conundrum cards] [graphic].
  • Production: [England], [between 1820 and 1840?]
  • Publication: [England] : [publisher not identified], [between 1820 and 1840?]

Catalog Record

724 820C

Acquired January 2021

A set of conversation cards

description below

Cards for a Regency parlor game that take the form of question and answer. The cards printed in black are questions from a man to a woman, her replies are the red printed set.

  • Title: [A set of conversation cards].
  • Publication: [England] : [publisher not identified], [ca. 1800]

Catalog Record

66 800 C766

Acquired June 2021

A set of transformation playing cards

hand drawn playing cards

A presumably incomplete set of ten transformation playing cards, drawn by Thomas Dyer, with caricatured figures of his family as stated in a 1852 note by William Hylton Dyer Longstaffe mounted to the side of the 3 of hearts. Each figure is drawn to incorporate the shape of a heart, diamond, or spade and then tipped onto brown card. Some of the cards were copied or adapted from the Nixon-Fuller set which was published circa 1811; one, for example, shows two men seated across a table with a candle jug and pipe resting upon it, which according to Longstaffe’s note features a self-portrait by Thomas Dyer (smoking) and a portrait of his father William Charles Dyer (either snoozing or contemplating). Other cards represent a range of subjects: a courtroom drama, guardsmen, two seated women (one of whom is reading to the other), a man with a goatee beard, a clergyman holding a baby and a couple standing on either side of him, and a scene with two people playing cards. Other Longstaffe’s notes provide the provenance and custodial history of the cards; “I beg your acceptance of the enclosed. The drawings on the cards are by the late Thomas Dyer caricaturing his family. Charles Dyer to me, 27 Dec. 1852.” Another note reads: “‘I beg your acceptance of the enclosed cards, which I only found this morning. They belong to the former ones I sent. Thomas Dyer gave them to his Aunt Elizabeth, from thence they descended to my aunt Emma.’ Charles H. Dyer to me, 5 Mr. 1853.”
The set also includes a full-length portrait of a Georgian gentleman, drawn on an oval piece of paper that has been mounted to a rectangular card mount with gold paper.

  • Artist: Dyer, Thomas, approximately 1783-1852, artist.
  • Title: [A set of transformation playing cards] [art original].
  • Production: [England], [between 1815 and 1820?]

Catalog Record

Drawings D996 no.1

Acquired October 2021