A cook berating a lazy servant.
- Title: A hard case [graphic].
- Publication: [London?] : [publisher not identified], [approximately 1820?]
820.00.00.93+
Acquired September 2023
A hard case
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Tag Archives: Servants
High life below stairs
“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]
770.00.00.103+
Acquired November 2022
The fruits of early industry & oeconemy
“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.
Drawer 800.03.25.07
Acquired April 2023
High life below stairs
“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]
Drawings G877 no. 1 Box D205
Acquired October 2022
Morning
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]
Hogarth 797.08.01.01++ Box 310
Acquired January 2021
Noon
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]
Hogarth 797.10.01.03++ Box 310
Acquired January 2021
A master parson with a good living
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]
Drawings D574 no. 6 Framed
Acquired October 2020
Evening, or, The man of feeling
Three men sit by a supper-table, a grandfather-clock behind them points to XI. The man on the left is having his jack-boots pulled off by a small boy; the boy stands astride his right leg pulling hard, his back to the man, who is scowling and pushes his other booted foot against the boy’s back; on the floor are a pair of spurs, a pair of slippers, and a boot-jack. A man (right) wearing a night-cap, but otherwise completely dressed and wearing spurred boots, leans one elbow on the table, his face contorted as if in pain, he holds his hand to his thigh. On the table beside him is a small packet inscribed “Diaculum”. In the centre, and on the farther side of the table, the third man leans both elbows on the table, his hair is tousled and his eyes are shut. A servant behind, yawning, is carrying off a square box, probably a wig-box, while a maidservant stands on the right, a candle in one hand, a warming-pan in the other, watching with amusement the efforts of the boy to pull off the boot. Three hats hang on the wall; a bottle, a plate, three wine-glasses, and a guttering candle, burnt down to the socket, stand on the table. See related image in the British Museum catalogue.
- Title: Evening, or, The man of feeling [graphic] / design’d by W.H. Bunbury Esqr.
- Publication: [London?] : [publisher not identified], [ca. 1818]
816.00.00.81+
Acquired November 2020
Durhm Saugur, Comilla
A Bangladeshi hunting scene showing three riders, one a woman riding side-saddle, following a pack of hounds; Indian servants and an English family in the foreground.
- Title: Durhm Saugur, Comilla [graphic].
- Publication: [Comilla, Bangladesh?] : [publisher not identified], [ca. 1820]
820.00.00.92+
Acquired August 2020
A harlots progress. Plate VI
A copy in reverse of William Hogarth’s Plate 6 of A harlot’s progress: A dilapidated room with Moll Hackabout’s friends, mostly prostitutes, gathered around her open coffin, several of them weeping; one young woman stands with her back to the scene as she gazes at herself in the mirror. On the right, a clergyman spills his brandy as he surreptitiously gropes beneath a woman’s skirt; Moll’s serving woman, standing at the coffin with a wine bottle and glass in hand scowls at the pair. Under the window and to the left, the undertaker flirts with a pretty young prostitute who picks a handkerchief from his pocket. In the foreground Moll’s small son plays with a spinning top. Sprigs of yew (rosemary?) decorate her coffin; a plate of yew rests on the floor at the parson’s feet, another spring at her son’s feet.
- Title: A harlots progress. Plate VI [graphic] : Her funeral properly attended = Pompe de ses funérailles / invented & painted by Wm. Hogarth.
- Publication: [London] : [publisher not identified], [not before 25 March 1768]
Hogarth 768.03.25.14+ Box 210
Acquired December 2019