A new Chancery suit removed to the Scotch bar

description below

Print shows a Gretna Green marriage in an open-fronted smithy. Erskine, disguised in woman’s dress with a huge feathered bonnet over a barrister’s wig, holds the right hand of a demure-looking woman, modishly dressed and apparently pregnant. He holds a paper: ‘Breach of Promise’. With them are three young children. The smith wears Highland dress; he holds a red-hot bar on the anvil and raises his hammer, saying, “I shall make a good thing of this Piece at last.” Erskine says: “I have bother’d the Courts in London many times, I’ll now try my hand at the Scotch Bar–as to Miss C– she may do her worst since I have got my Letters back.” The woman says: “Now who dare say, Blacks the White of my Eye.” In the background (right) a young woman rushes down a slope towards the smithy, shouting, “Oh Stop Stop Stop, false Man, I will yet seek redress tho you have got back your letters–” Beside her is a sign-post pointing ‘To Gretna Green’. A little boy with Erskine’s features, wearing tartan trousers, stands on tip-toe to watch the smith; on the ground beside him is a toy (or emblem), a cock on a pair of breeches. A little girl stands by her mother nursing a doll fashionably dressed as a woman, but with Erskine’s profile. Another boy with a toy horse on a string stands in back view watching ‘Miss C’. Behind the smith is the furnace; on the wall hang many rings: ‘Rings to fit all Hands.’

 

  • Printmaker: Cruikshank, Robert, 1789-1856, printmaker.
  • Title: A new Chancery suit removed to the Scotch bar, or, More legitimates [graphic] / I.R.C. fecit.
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. Feby. 4th, 1819, by S.W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly & 312 Oxford Street, [4 February 1819]

Catalog record

819.02.04.01+

Acquired November 2022

London sportsmen recharging

description below

Print shows one of two huntsmen negligently using a ramrod. A barnyard rooster hangs from his waist. His companion leans against a fence, voraciously gnawing a cold chicken, a bottle of ‘Porter’ in front of him. Near him lies a dead cat. The men are accompanied by two dogs.

 

  • Title: London sportsmen recharging [graphic].
  • Publication: [Alnwick] : Printed and published by W. Davison, Alnwick, [between 1812 and 1817]

Catalog Record

812.00.00.127

Acquired August 2022

Execution of two celebrated enemies of Old England

printed text

The arms of two gibbets extend symmetrically, high above a bonfire; between them is an equally high post supporting a board on which the title is etched. From one (right) dangles a realistic effigy of Napoleon (scarcely caricatured) in cocked hat, uniform, and Hessian boots. From the other hangs a ruffianly fellow holding a dark lantern. They face each other in profile.

  • Creator: Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827, artist.
  • Title: Execution of two celebrated enemies of Old England & their dying speeches, Nov. 5th, 1813 [art original].
  • Production: [England], [1813]

Catalog Record

Drawings R79 no. 22 Box D305

Acquired April 2023

A royal salute

description below

A caricature of Queen Caroline embracing her lover Bartolomeo Bergami.

  • Printmaker: Heath, William, 1795-1840, printmaker.
  • Title: A royal salute [graphic] : le cannon est en bas.
  • Publication: [London] : Pub. Aug. 28, 1820, by S.W. Fores, 41 Picadilli [sic], [28 August 1820]

Catalog Record

820.08.28.01.1+

Acquired April 2023

London sportsmen finding a hare

description below

A satire on London hunters: A hare crouching in long grass beside an old tree at left while a young man runs forward dragging his gun, and holding out his hat to throw it over the animal. Two dogs follow behind him and a second man squats down with his gun to watch.

 

  • Title: London sportsmen finding a hare [graphic].
  • Publication: [Alnwick] : Printed and published by W. Davison, Alnwick, [between 1812 and 1817]

Catalog Record

812.00.00.128

Acquired August 2022

The new banking company’s scales of equity

description below

“A hand projects from the upper margin, holding the ornate beam of a pair of scales against the irradiated inscription Mene mene–Tekel, &c. [cf. British Museum Satires No. 10072, &c.]. One scale (left) is filled by a large melon from which a slice has been cut, and by a paper: One Million Sterling!! The scale is inscribed The times are Rank Hamlet. This slightly outweighs the other scale which is filled by a ducal coronet and papers: Lt R. N–; Duke E[ar]l Baron; Earl of–; Hery Grd Falconer; Chany; Nell Gwynn!; Hery Regr Chancery! The scale is inscribed A Pledge of Better Times.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Jones, Thomas Howell, active 1823-1848, printmaker.
  • Title: The new banking company’s scales of equity [graphic] / Aristocracy ivent. ; Democracy fect.
  • Publication: London : Pubd. by S.W. Fores, 41 Piccadilly, Novr. 1825.

Catalog Record

825.11.00.01+

Acquired November 2020

The old proprietors advice

description below

“Prince Leopold (right), in uniform, puts his head through a glassless aperture in a window in the door of his ‘Grecian Establish[ment]–Co[burg]’, to look intently at a fat Turk who stands in profile to the right, elaborately dressed and holding a long pipe with smoking bowl. The door, partly cut off by the right margin, is flanked by a Corinthian pillar and set in a wall on which are placards: ‘This . Shop!!! will shortly open under entire new Management–Vivant [sic] Rex’; a Union Jack poster (partly covered); the Russian eagle, and a fleur-de-lis, the two last inscribed ‘Loan’. The Turk: ‘What have you taken the Shop? well if you take my advice you will not give Your Customers too much Credit for I can tell you they are a queer set to deal with by the bye they nearly ruined me–and mind that you look sharp after your Shopmen’.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Heath, William, 1795-1840, printmaker.
  • Title: The old proprietors advice [graphic] / William Heath.
  • Publication: [London] : Pub. April 10, 1830, by T. McLean, 26 Haymarket, [10 April 1830]

Catalog Record

830.04.10.01+

Acquired November 2020

A Christmas box

description below

“A front elevation of a theatre-box crammed with delighted children fills the design. In the front row are a lady and four little girls. In the middle sits the father, one small boy on his knee, an arm round another child. Eight more children fill the box. Behind them a lady chooses fruit from an old woman’s basket. Two men stand behind. Over the front of the box hangs a playbill: During the Xmas Holidays–Pantomime of Harliquin–Clown by Mr G [Grimaldi].”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Cruikshank, George, 1792-1878, printmaker.
  • Title: A Christmas box [graphic] / S.K. invt. ; G. Ck. fect.
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. Decr. 26th, 1826, by S. Knights, Sweetings [A]lley, Royal Exchange, [26 December 1826]

Catalog Record

826.12.26.01

Acquired November 2020

Hudibras vanquish’d and protected by Trulla

see description below

A copy (cropped) of Hogarth’s fifth plate: Hudibras is sprawled on the ground with Trulla, a large country-woman, astride him fending off angry villagers, including a cobbler and a butcher who are wielding clubs; to the left, Ralpho is flanked by a man with a rope (mostly cropped from this image) and another who holds a sword.

  • Title: Hudibras vanquish’d and protected by Trulla [graphic] : P. 1. Cant: 3. l. 929.
  • Publication: [London] : [Robert Sayer], [between 1768 and 1794]

Catalog Record

Folio 75 H67 768B

Acquired January 2021

The game of see saw, or, Amusement for John Bull

description below“Mrs. Clarke (right) sits triumphantly astride the upper end of a see-saw which is supported on an upholstered stool. The Duke of York (left), dropping his sword, falls headlong from the other end which rests on the ground. She waves her arms, pointing a derisive finger at the Duke, and sings: “Here I go up up up and there you go Down Down Downy, The game it is pretty well up, and so you must fall to the Grouny!” The Duke sings: “What a way for to serve your own Sweety, how could you vex your own Deary, If you had not thrown me quite down, you’d have had your 4 hundred a Yeary.” On the ground are the Duke’s cocked hat (left) and (right) a mitre, with a book, ‘Ovid art of Love’, and crosier (see British Museum satires no. 11227), with writing materials and papers: a bundle of ‘Love Letters’ (see British Museum satires no. 11228, &c.) tied like legal documents, against which is a door-plate inscribed ‘for further particulars inquire within’, a bundle docketed ‘Account of Debts Gloucester’ [Place, see British Museum satires no. 11222, &c], a paper headed ‘To Col Wardle’. There is a landscape background irradiated by a setting sun.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Williams, Charles, active 1797-1830, printmaker.
  • Title: The game of see saw, or, Amusement for John Bull [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. March 1809 by Walker, No. 7 Cornhill, [March 1809]

Catalog RecordĀ 

809.03.00.04+

Acquired November 2019