Tag Archives: Servants

Amsterdam, Shanks Leggs servant shaving him

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A scene in a bedroom, the bed in a niche behind a curtain, one man sits as he is being shaved by his servant, as a companion stands with his arms crossed. To their left is an open trunk with slippers and boots on the ground on the far left. A fourth man stands apart arrange his queue(?), two pistols on the floor to his right beside an open duffel bag. On the right wall hangs a portrait of Emperor Joseph above a large fireplace; on the left wall hangs a portrait of a woman in profile

  • Title: Amsterdam, Shanks Leggs servant shaving him 
  • Creator: Nixon, John, -1818, artist
  • Published: Amsterdam, approximately 1790

Catalog Record

Drawings N736 no.12

Acquired September 2024

Dressing for the House on the – March 1829

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“Lyndhurst stands beside a dressing-table (left), in shirt-sleeves, wearing his Chancellor’s wig. He puts one hand into the arm-hole of a coat which a footman in livery holds out, saying, ‘Your Lordship’s Coat is become very threadbare for you know you turned it only last year–& it has been turned before that: so I much doubt if it will bear turning any more– Can’t you afford to buy a new one now her Ladyship earns her own Expenses?– Doodle pays all her bills and gives her every thing she can wish for.’ Lyndhurst: ‘Alas! she’ll get no more out of Doodle! he has quite kicked her off–She is just now gone to Cumberland to try after a service there which perhaps may enable me to keep still sitting on Wool, if I can but turn this Coat once more & look decent.’ On a settee (right) are the mace, Purse of the Great Seal, and the Chancellor’s gown.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Heath, William, 1795-1840, printmaker.
  • Title: Dressing for the House on the – March 1829 [graphic] / [man with umbrella] Escr.
  • Publication: [London] : Pub. March 24, 1829, by T. McLean, 26 Haymarket, [24 March 1829]

Catalog Record

829.03.24.01+

Acquired June 2024

Les dames Anglaises après-diné

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“A lady, stout and plain, her knees awkwardly apart, sits behind a small round tea-table filling a cup from a large urn. Seven other ladies sit on her right and left, in a semicircle, on upright chairs, in silent boredom. A child sits by its ugly middle-aged mother on the extreme right. A black servant in livery hands a tray on which are cups, cream-jug, and small (?) rolls. The room is bare except for table, chairs, and a narrow curtained window.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Title: Les dames Anglaises après-diné [graphic].
  • Publication: A Paris : Chez Martinet, Libraire, Rue de Coq St. Honoré, [1814]

Catalog Record

814.00.00.43

Acquired April 2024

High life below stairs

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“Interior of a kitchen showing servants at leisure: a stout woman dances with a black man in the centre accompanied by a man with a wooden leg who sits playing a violin on the left; watched by others on the right, a young woman standing on a chair and supported by a young man, while a seated man wearing a tricorn smiles and points at her and an elderly woman stands with her arms folded under her apron, a dog at her heels; two posters pasted on the wall behind, shelves, bellows and other kitchen implements in the background.”–British Museum online catalogue, description of a print of the same design.

 

  • Title: High life below stairs [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : [Carington Bowles?], [approximately 1770]

Catalog Record

770.00.00.103+

Acquired November 2022

The fruits of early industry & oeconemy

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“A family in a wealthy interior; an elderly man at centre, seated at a table, a glass in his left hand, holding out his right to receive coins from a younger man standing to left with his right hand on a book and a quill in his mouth; on the table, another glass, writing materials, coins and notes; to right, a woman …, supporting, and holding up a bunch of grapes for, a young child standing on a chair; looking on from behind the chair, a boy and, at right, a black servant holding a bowl of fruit, his left hand on the chair; in front of the table, a young girl lying on the carpet with a spaniel; a shipping wharf seen through an open window to left.”–British Museum online catalogue, description of another print engraved after the same painting

  • Printmaker: Darcis, Louis, -1801, printmaker.
  • Title: The fruits of early industry & oeconemy [sic] [graphic] / G. Morland pinxt. ; Darcis sculpt.
  • Publication: London : [publisher not identified], publishd. March 25, 1800.

Catalog Record

Drawer 800.03.25.07

Acquired April 2023

High life below stairs

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“Interior of a kitchen showing servants at leisure: a stout woman dances with a black man in the centre accompanied by a man with a wooden leg who sits playing a violin on the left; watched by others on the right, a young woman standing on a chair and supported by a young man, while a seated man wearing a tricorn smiles and points at her and an elderly woman stands with her arms folded under her apron, a dog at her heels; two posters pasted on the wall behind, shelves, bellows and other kitchen implements in the background.”–British Museum online catalogue, description of a print of the same design.

 

  • Artist: Grose, Francis, 1731?-1791, artist.
  • Title: [High life below stairs] [art original].
  • Production: [England], [not after 1767]

Catalog Record

Drawings G877 no. 1 Box D205

Acquired October 2022

Morning

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An old woman, the prude, is standing near a crowd of people huddled around a bonfire in Covent Garden. She is crossing Covent Garden Piazza, disapproving of the amorous scenes outside the notorious Tom King’s Coffee House. The print shows the morning and is part of a series representing the progress of the day.

  • Printmaker: Cook, Thomas, approximately 1744-1818, printmaker.
  • Title: Morning [graphic] / designed by Wm. Hogarth ; engraved by T. Cook.
  • Publication: [London] : Published August the 1st, 1797, by G.G. & J. Robinson, Pater-noster Row, London, [1 August 1797]

Catalog Record

Hogarth 797.08.01.01++ Box 310

Acquired January 2021

Noon

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A copy of the second print in William Hogarth’s series “Four Times of the Day”: Set outside St Giles’s-in-the-Fields. On the right an elegant crowd leaves the French Huguenot church; they are dressed in the height of French fashion. Two women kiss on the far right in the customary French way. They are contrasted with Londoners on the left. The two groups are separated by a gutter down the middle of the road; a dead cat lies in the gutter foreground. The Londoners stand outside a tavern with the sign of the Good Woman (one without a head); a woman and man in the second-storey window look surprised as the contents of her bowl are tossed out the window. In the foreground, left, under a sign with John the Baptist’s head on a platter and reading “Good Eating”, a black man embraces a servant girl and a small boy (evidently intended by his curly red hair to be identified as one of the Irish inhabitants of the area) cries because he has broken a pie-dish. A little girl squats as she eats the fallen pie off the ground. The clock in the steeple in the background reads 12:30.

  • Printmaker: Cook, Thomas, approximately 1744-1818, printmaker.
  • Title: Noon [graphic] / designed by Wm. Hogarth ; engraved by T. Cook.
  • Publication: [London] : Published October the 1st, 1797, by G.G. & J. Robinson, Pater-noster Row, London, [1 October 1797]

Catalog Record

Hogarth 797.10.01.03++ Box 310

Acquired January 2021

A master parson with a good living

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In a richly decorated and carpeted interior, an obese clergyman with his equally large, bespectacled wife sit at a dining table with their three children; on the back wall hangs a portrait of the clergyman. He raises a wineglass to his lips as a servant uncorks another bottle of wine.

 

  • Artist: Dighton, Robert, 1752-1814, artist.
  • Title: [A master parson with a good living] [art original].
  • Production: [England], [ca. 1782]

Catalog Record

Drawings D574 no. 6 Framed

Acquired October 2020