Johnny Bull on the look-out

description below

“John Bull (right), a fat citizen wearing spectacles, holds aside a curtain, revealing Napoleon and Joséphine enthroned, side by side. He stands in profile to the left, a large pistol under his left arm, his left hand in his coat-pocket. He says: “Boney – Boney, that wont do – You must not Play my King & Queen.” Napoleon, wearing a huge bicorne, a drawn sabre in his right hand, frowns at John. Joséphine wears a crown, holds sceptre and orb and looks complacently to the left. Both sit with right foot planted regally on a stool, and left leg arrogantly thrust forward.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Title: Johnny Bull on the look-out, or, Bonaparte detected drilling his rib at the play of King & Queen of England [graphic] : scene St. Cloud.
  • Publication: [London] : Publish’d Septr. 12, 1803, by Laurie & Whittle, 53 Fleet Street, London, [12 September 1803]

Catalog Record

803.09.12.01

Acquired November 2023

Long faces at Bayonne

description below

“Napoleon (left) and Joseph sit side by side on low seats or stools, both with a hand on each knee. They have large, elongated heads broadly caricatured (as in British Museum Satires No. 10604, &c.) and look sideways at each other with drawn-down mouths and wrinkled foreheads. Napoleon is in uniform, wearing a feathered bicorne; Joseph wears a crown with Spanish dress, ermine-trimmed robe, and the order of the Golden Fleece. His seat is, very inconspicuously, a commode. At his feet is a sceptre with a scroll inscribed ‘Servata Fides Cineri’. Napoleon says: “A pretty piece of Business we have made of it Brother Joe.” Joseph: “I always told you Nap, what would come of makeing too free with the Spaniards.””–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Williams, Charles, active 1797-1830, printmaker.
  • Title: Long faces at Bayonne, or, King Nap and King Joe in the dumps [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. Augt. 1808 by Walker, No. 7 Cornhill, [August 1808]

Catalog Record

808.08.00.01+

Acquired February 2024

The old bachelor’s thermometer

description below

The image at top shows an old man sitting in an armchair on the right, his gouty foot resting on a footstool, a crutch seen leaning against a stool beside him. He looks up at a younger woman on the left, who wears a bonnet and apron and is looking down and away from him. Draperies and a framed picture of Cupid shooting an arrow decorate the wall behind them. The text below, in two columns with an age listed at the beginning of each line, tells the humorous tale of the consequences of a man putting off marriage for prideful reasons from age “16 – incipient palpitations towards the young ladies”, through the ages of “29 – rails against the fair sex”, “37 – indulge in every kind of dissipation”, and “48 – thinks living alone quite irksome …”. Eventually, he resolves to have a prudent young woman as housekeeper and companion, gradually feeling some attachment to her and becoming completely under her influence. At age 60, as he begins to feel ill, and “grows rapidly worse, has his will made in her favour, and makes an exit.”

  • Title: The old bachelor’s thermometer. The old maid’s thermometer [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Published by S. and J. Fuller, 34, Rathbone-Place, [between 1809 and 1839]
  • Manufacture: [London] : Printed by L. Harrison, 373, Strand.

Catalog Record

809.00.00.64

Acquired March 2020

A coronation stool, of repentance

description below

“The Queen sits in profile to the right on a huge crown, her left foot on a footstool. She partly hides her face and an ambiguous grimace behind a fan inscribed C; in her right hand is a handkerchief. She is fat, very décolletée, and bejewelled, with monstrous ostrich feathers in her hair.”–British Museum online catalogue.

 

  • Printmaker: Lane, Theodore, 1800-1828, printmaker.
  • Title: A coronation stool, of repentance [graphic].
  • Publication: London : Pubd. by G. Humphrey, 27 St. James St., July 19, 1821.

Catalog Record

821.07.19.07

Acquired March 2020