The compliments of the season

description below

A man hunched over a fire in an empty room as eight tradespeople — a chandler, a baker, a butcher, a dairy woman, a tailor, and a dustman — fight to present their unpaid bills, long scrolls of paper that they show to the bankrupt man. He responds: ‘God bless me Wot a Posse of ye – I’m very Sorry to inform ye my good Folks that I’ve just been turn’d a Bankrupt’.

  • Printmaker: Grant, C. J. (Charles Jameson), active 1830-1852, printmaker.
  • Title: The compliments of the season [graphic] / C.J. Grant.
  • Publication: [London] : Pub. by Tregear, Cheapside, London, Jany. 1832.

Catalog Record

832.01.00.02

Acquired March 2024

Journeymen hatters dipping their master in the dye

description below

Four employees of a hatter force their employer into a bath of black dye. One of the journeymen holds a beaver by its tail as it cries “He robbed me of my coat, and blam’d others for it.” A young apprentice entering from the right holds out a fish to the beaver. In the foreground a black demon whose speech balloon reads, “Push him through my lads. I’ll adopt him as one of my children.”

  • Printmaker: Charles, William, 1776-1820, printmaker, artist.
  • Title: Journeymen hatters dipping their master in the dye [graphic] / Charles del. et sculp.
  • Publication: [London?] : [publisher not identified], publishd. April 14th, 1806.

Catalog Record

806.04.14.01+

Acquired April 2024

Laying a ghost!!

description below

Satire: parson, with two men, exorcising ghost in field.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Newton, Richard, 1777-1798, printmaker.
  • Title: Laying a ghost!! [graphic] / G.M. Woodward delin. ; etch’d by R. Newton.
  • Publication: London : Pub. Octr. 1, 1792, by W. Holland, No. 50 Oxford St., [1 October 1792]

Catalog Record

792.10.01.03

Acquired September 2023

The western prospect of Bears-Den Hall in Co. Surrey

description below

View of a house supposedly near Putney Common, satirically called ‘Bear’s Den Hall’, a rickety house with cracked plaster walls and a chimney-stack with broken brick, and with weeds growing from the cracks and on the roof. A key at the top references many of the features of the scene, including a bear is chained by the front door (B) at the left, birds in flight (K). The property is separated from the road in the foreground by a wicket fence, with a satircial armorial crest along the lower edge with portraits of Charles Christian and Skelton.
Satire on social pretensions: a view of a dilapidated cottage set into a garden behind a wooden fence, with a mock coat-of-arms at the bottom.–From variant state in the British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Reisen, Charles Christian, 1680-1725, printmaker.
  • Title: The western prospect of Bears-Den Hall in Co. Surrey [graphic].
  • Edition: [State without Greek motto at bottom of image].
  • Publication: [London] : [publisher not identified], [approximately 1720]

Catalog Record

720.00.00.106

Acquired November 2023

Amusements des Anglais à Paris

description below

“A grossly obese John Bull and his lean and ugly wife, both wearing hats, sit on upright chairs, gormandizing. The man holds a whole chicken to his mouth, taking a huge bite. The woman (left) faces him, biting a large melon which she holds with both hands to an enormous mouth. He is morosely savage, she is melancholy; both are gap-toothed. On the ground (right) by the man’s chair are collected a ham or gigot, a large irregular (?) galantine, a raised pie: ‘pâté de périgueux’, a huge jar of ‘vin de lafitte’ round which four bottles are grouped: ‘frontignac’, ‘Clos de Vouge[ot]’, and ‘. . . seac’. Beside the woman are a basket and tray filled with grapes, peaches, and pears. Through a wide doorway (left) the street is seen with a seated fruit-seller who serves three grotesquely hideous Englishwomen. Two are lank and emaciated, one tries to stuff a big peach into an immense mouth, holding an armful of grapes and peaches; the other gnaws at a bunch of grapes held in both hands. The third, also with bulging cheeks, bites a peach. The fruit-seller’s tray is empty; she holds out her last peach. All the women wear small absurd hats or caps, tight long-waisted bodices (coloured) with long white skirts (cf. No. 12359).”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Title: Amusements des Anglais à Paris [graphic].
  • Publication: A Paris : Chez Martinet, Libraire, Rue de Coq St. Honoré, [between 1814 and 1815]

Catalog Record

814.11.00.01

Acquired April 2024

Frontispiece to Useful Knowledge

description below

A sheet with 25 vignettes in roughly five rows, each with a humorous or satirical scene or a visual pun and each captioned with names of trades, industry, or arts. At the center of the page is a caricature of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Brougham in his long, curl wig and a collar, holding a broom in his left hand, with the caption “The Title page and Index” below. One of many such frontispieces of the period mocking the political and educational movements bringing information and knowledge to the working classes.

  • Title: Frontispiece to Useful Knowledge [graphic] / W. Newman invent.
  • Publication: London: Pubd. by G.S. Tregear, Cheapside,[between 1833 and 1835]
  • Manufacture: [London] : Printed by R. Redman

Catalog Record

833.00.00.18

Acquired December 2023

Coming out of a country theatre

description below

A large crowd of theatregoers file out of a theater and onto the street in a pouring rainfall and high winds that turns umbrellas inside out. One man has fallen and broken his lantern as a woman falls back over him as her shoes are being changed. The audience is a mix of classes, couples, old women, young boys, some carrying lanterns, one with a cane.

  • Artist: Byron, Frederick George, 1764-1792, artist.
  • Title: [Coming out of a country theatre] [art original] / F.G. Byron 1802.
  • Production: [England], [1802]

Catalog Record

Drawer Drawings B995 no. 2

Acquired April 2024

Iohn Bull refreshing the bears memory

description below

“John Bull, a sturdy citizen, displays to the Tsar who is a crowned bear on its hind-legs (left), an enormous open book: ‘John Bulls Journal’. This rests on the ground, and reaches to John’s chest; he points to the right.-hand page: ‘The Great the Magnanimous Catherine of Russia seized upon One third of the Kingdom of Poland and Kept it to herself – These Peaceful Danes Seiz’d on the City of Hamburgh.’ He says: “So you say Master Bruin, that my visit to Denmark has no parallel in History- do be so good as to turn your spectacles to this page and refresh Your Memory.” The bear peers gloomily through huge spectacles at the page. Round his neck is a collar: ‘This Bear belongs to Napoleo[n]’.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Cruikshank, Isaac, 1764-1811, printmaker.
  • Title: Iohn Bull refreshing the bears memory [graphic] / Cruickshank [sic] sct.
  • Publication: London : Published by T. Tegg, 111 Cheapside, Decr. 20, 1807.

Catalog Record

807.12.20.01+

Acquired February 2024

A king-fisher, and a water-wag-tail

description below

A caricature of George IV fishing on Virginia Water, using his scepter as a rod, watched by a kingfisher and a wagtail. On the end of his line is a frog, which is being netted by Lady Conyngham, his mistress.

  • Title: A king-fisher, and a water-wag-tail [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. Jul. 13, 1826, by J. Fairburn, Broadway, Ludgate Hill, [13 July 1826]

Catalog Record

836.07.13.01+

Acquired September 2023

Bull bamboozled both ways

description below

Wellington (as Constable of the Tower of London) holds a pistol to the head of John Bull, as Henry Goulburn (Chancellor of the Exchequer) harangues Bull from the other side, forcing John to reach into his pockets to pay for the rebuilding of the Tower of London, seen burning in the background.

  • Printmaker: Grant, C. J. (Charles Jameson), active 1830-1852, printmaker.
  • Title: Bull bamboozled both ways – robbed in one department, and burnt out in another [graphic] / C.J.G.
  • Publication: London : Printed and published by B.D. Cousins, 18, Duke-Street, Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, [after 30 October 1841]

Catalog Record

841.10.30.01++

Acquired February 2024