Relieving the distress’d travellers

description below

A fashionable couple walk on a country road past a cottage. A woman carrying a small child and carrying bags on her back approach them from behind and one of her small children on foot doffs his cap and reaches out his hand for alms. Another small child, also cap in hand, hangs onto his mother’s skirts. Also on the road, heading in the opposite direction is a wagon filled with recruits and soldiers and one woman holding onto a large trunk.

  • Title: Relieving the distress’d travellers [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Printed for & sold by Bowles & Carver, No. 69 St Paul’s Church Yard, London, [approximately 1812]
  • Manufacture: [printed 1812]

Catalog Record

812.00.00.130

Acquired September 2023

The coronation of the Empress of the Nairs

description below

Lady Hertford reclines in an ornate bath, into which water gushes from the jaws of a monster which decorates the pedestal of a Venus. The bath is raised on a triple dais and backed by the pillars and canopy which frame the Venus forming the centre of the design. The Regent, in royal robes, ascends the steps of the dais, poised on his toes like a ballet-dancer, and places a crownlike marquis’s coronet on the head of Lady Hertford who leans towards him, her enormous breasts appearing over the edge of the bath. She says: “I proclaim the Freedom of the Sex & the Supremacy of Love.” Lord Hertford, who bestrides the pedestal, looks down delightedly from behind the statue of Venus. He has horns, and holds his Chamberlain’s staff. The water pours from the bath through the nostrils of a bull’s head with which it is ornamented, and falls in a triple cascade into a circular basin in the centre foreground. On each side of the statue of Venus and flanking the dais is a statue in a niche: ‘Aspasia’ (left) and ‘Messalina’ (right); both are disrobing. Near the fountain (right) a hideous hag, naked to the waist, crouches before a tall brazier in which she burns a ‘Mantle of Modesty’. The building appears to be circular, an arc of the wall forming a background on each side of the centre-piece. On this are tablets inscribed respectively ‘Hic Jacet Perdita’ [Mary Robinson, the Prince’s first mistress, see No. 5767, &c.]; ‘Hic Jacet Armstead’ [Mrs. Fox, who had been the Prince’s mistress, cf. No. 10589]; ‘Hic J[acet] Vauxhall Bess’ [Elizabeth Billington, see British Museum Satires No. 9970; her mother sang at Vauxhall, see British Museum Satires No. 6853]. In the foreground on the extreme right a buxom young woman puts her arms round the Duke of Cumberland, saying, “I’ll go to Cumberland”; he walks off with her, to the fury of an admiral just behind the lady who clutches his sword and is seemingly her husband. Cumberland wears hussar uniform with a shako and fur-bordered dolman, with a star and a large sabre. A meretricious-looking young woman (? Mrs. Carey) puts her arms round the Duke of York, saying, “And I to York.” The Duke, who wears uniform with a cocked hat and no sword, looks down quizzically at her. Behind him a tall thin officer in hussar uniform bends towards Princess Charlotte, taking her hand; he says: “Sure & I’ll go to Wales.” She runs eagerly towards him. As a pendant to these figures, Grenadiers stand at attention on the left, holding bayoneted muskets; they have huge noses, and smile at a buxom lady wearing spurred boots who addresses them with outstretched arm, saying, “And you for Buckinghamshire.” At her feet is an open book: ‘Slawkenberges Chapr on Noses’ [from Sterne’s Slawkenbergius, imaginary author of a Rabelaisian fantasy in ‘Tristram Shandy’]. They have a standard with the word ‘Buckin …’ on it. Behind the Prince (left) stands Tom Moore, looking up at the coronation; he holds an open book: ‘Little Poems / Ballad . . .’ He says: “I’ll give you one Little Song More [see British Museum Satires No. 12082].” Behind him stands Mrs. Jordan, placing a chamber-pot on the head of the Duke of Clarence, who wears admiral’s uniform with trousers.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Cruikshank, George, 1792-1878, printmaker.
  • Title: The coronation of the Empress of the Nairs [graphic] / G. Cruikshank sculpt.
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. September 1st, 1812, by W.N. Jones, No. 5 Newgate St., [1 September 1812]

Catalog Record

812.09.01.01++

Acquired September 2023

The new manual and platoon exercises

description below

A military-drill aid, dissected into twelve panels, providing a step-by-step pictorial guide to basic infantry exercises ‘as practised by His Majesty’s Army’. The whole consists of two separate evolutions: ‘Manual Exercise’ in eight steps, which involves the fixing and use of bayonets but with no firing or reloading; and ‘Platoon Exercise’ in ten steps, including the firing of muskets and subsequent reloading. Each dissected panel features two steps, with the three remaining panels containing the ‘Position of an Officer’ and ‘3 Ranks. Make Ready’, the decorated title vignette, and ”3 Ranks. Present – Fire’ alongside a detailed schematic of a musket, in both assembled and disassembled forms. Engraved after the work of English artist and printmaker Robert Dighton, this guide was issued at the beginning of the most acute stage of the first Napoleonic invasion scare and sold folded in a slipcase.

  • Title: The new manual and platoon exercises, as practised by His Majesty’s Army [graphic] / Dighton del.
  • Publication: London : Printed for Bowles and Carver, No. 69 St. Paul’s Church Yard, published 2 Jan 1795.

Catalog Record

795.01.02.01+

Acquired July 2023

The consequence of invasion, or, The hero’s reward

description below

“A very fat and jovial volunteer, dressed as a light horseman, holds ln his left hand a pole on which is the head of Napoleon in profile to the right. and wearing a huge cocked hat decorated with plumes, tricolour cockade, gold lace, and tassels. The hand that holds the pole holds also, by the hair, a bunch of bleeding heads which form a grisly garland round it. In his right hand is his sabre. He is surrounded by women; two embrace him, others hasten up; he swaggers with raised left leg, saying, “There you rouges, there! there’s the Boney Part – twenty more killed them!! twenty more killed them too!! I have destroyed half the Army with this same Toledo.” The women say, respectively: “Bless the Warrior that saved our Virgin charms”; “take care I’ll smother him with Kisses”; “Oh! what frightful Heads how ravishing they look, – they would have used us ill I am sure”; “ha ha, thats, that great man little Boney, how glum he looks.” An elderly spinster exclaims: “ah bless him he has saved us from Death and Vileation.” A handsome woman turns to a tall young man in civilian dress on the extreme left, saying, “There you Poltroon look how that noble Hero’s Caressed!” He turns away, saying, “Ods Niggins I wish I had been a Soldier too then the Girls would have run after me – but I never could bear the smell of Gun powder”.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Williams, Charles, active 1797-1830, printmaker.
  • Title: The consequence of invasion, or, The hero’s reward [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. August 1st, 1803, by S.W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly, [1 August 1803]

Catalog Record

803.08.01.01+

Acquired April 2023

Volunteer infantry 1798

description below

Full-length portrait of a soldier, in profile to the left, a rifle with bayonet resting against his left shoulder.

 

  • Creator: Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827, artist.
  • Title: Volunteer infantry 1798 [art original] : original sketch by Thos. Rowlandson.
  • Production:[England], [1798]

Catalog Record

Drawings R79 no. 20 Box D207

Acquired November 2022

After the invasion

description below

“Three volunteers or militiamen, three-quarter length figures, exult at the head of Bonaparte which one of them (right) holds up on a pitchfork, saying, “Here he is Exalted my Lads 24 Hours after Landing.” The head is in profile to the left, the sharp well-cut features contrast with those of the chubby yokels. The centre figure, holding out his hat, says, turning to the left: “Why Harkee, d’ye zee, I never liked Soldiering afore, but some how or other when I though [sic] of our Sal the bearns, the poor pigs, the Cows and the Geese, why I could have killed the whole Army my own Self.” He wears a smock with the crossed straps of a cartouche-box. The third man (left) in regimentals, but round-shouldered and unsoldierly, says: “Dang my Buttons if that beant the Head of that Rogue Boney – I told our Squire this Morning, what do you think say’s I the Lads of our Village can’t cut up a Regiment of them French Mounsheers, and as soon as the Lasses had given us a Kiss for good luck I could have sworn we should do it and so we have.” All three have hats turned up with favours and oak-twigs, the favours being inscribed respectively (left to right): ‘Hearts of Oak’; ‘Britons never will be Slaves’, and ‘We’ll fight and We’ll Conquer again and again’. In the spaces between these foreground figures is seen a distant encounter between English horse and foot and French invaders, who are being driven into the sea, on which are flat-bottomed boats, all on a very small scale. Two women search French corpses; one says: “why this is poor finding I have emtied the pocketts of a score and only found one head of garlic 9 onions & a parcel of pill Boxes.” Cf. British Museum Satires No. 8145.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Williams, Charles, active 1797-1830, printmaker.
  • Title: After the invasion [graphic] : the levée en masse, or, Britons strike home.
  • Publication: [London] : Pub. Augt. 6th, 1803, by S.W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly, [6 August 1803]

Catalog Record

802.08.06.01+

Acquired April 2023

Soldier with an arrow in his chest

description below

A soldier, possibly from the English Civil War, looks with shock towards an arrow embedded in his chest. He sits, surrounded by foliage, holding a dagger in his right hand.

 

  • Creator: Bunbury, Henry William, 1750-1811, artist.
  • Title: [Soldier with an arrow in his chest] [art original].
  • Production: [England], [1780s?]

Catalog Record

Drawer Drawings B87 no. 31

Acquired November 2022

Anniversary meeting of the Guardians of the Asylum

description belowInvitation to a dinner of the Guardians of the Asylum for Female Orphans. At top is a scene of a woman leading three orphan children away to the left, while the bodies of soldiers are taken away to the right; text with the details of the meeting engraved below. The whole is enclosed within a border of leaves.

 

  • Creator: Asylum for Orphan Girls (London, England)
  • Title: Anniversary meeting of the Guardians of the Asylum : at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, Strand, on [blank] May 19th, 179 [blank]. Dinner ticket, price 10s. 6d.
  • Publication: [London] : [publisher not identified], [179-]

Catalog Record

File 66 79- As861

Acquired November 2022

Hell hounds rallying round the idol of France

description below

“A colossal but life-like bust of Napoleon is placed on a mound of decollated human heads. He gazes fixedly upwards in profile to the left; round his neck and bare breast is twisted a noose of rope. Round this idol dance demons with human heads, holding hands. They are naked except for head-coverings, and have horns, hairy legs, tail, with one leg terminating in a cloven hoof, the other in the claw of a bird of prey. These ‘Hell Hounds’ have labels hanging from a collar of rope, showing that they are ‘Caulincourt’, ‘Fouché’, ‘Savory’, with a pen in his hat (he succeeded Fouché as Minister of Police in 1810), ‘Vandamme’, ‘Davoust’, ‘Ney’, ‘Lefebre’. Two demons fly towards the emperor, holding a large wreath which is on fire, with the inscription ‘He Deserves A Crown of Pitch.’ This they are about to place on the idol’s head, towards which gallops through the air a small demon (right) on a goat, blowing a horn. In the foreground lie dead and dying soldiers, one is decapitated, another (right) is naked and has lost an arm which he holds out with an agonized expression towards the idol. In the background (left) soldiers are feeding a bonfire with ‘English Goods’. On the right is a blazing town.”–British Museum online catalogue.

 

  • Printmaker: Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827, printmaker.
  • Title: Hell hounds rallying round the idol of France [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. April 8, 1815, by R. Ackermann, No. 101 Strand, [8 April 1815]

Catalog record

815.04.08.01+

Acquired November 2022

The C … ll volunteer corps

printed text

  • Author: Inhabitant of Coggeshall.
  • Title: The C … ll volunteer corps : a farce, in two acts / by an inhabitant of Great Coggeshall.
  • Edition: The fourth edition.
  • Publication: Colchester : Printed and sold by I. Marsden : Sold also by all the Booksellers in the United Kingdom, [1804?]
  • Manufacture: [Colchester] : Marsden, printer, Colchester.

Catalog Record

768 In56 804

Acquired May 2022