Tag Archives: Tables

A beau-clerk for a banking-concern

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“Mrs. Coutts (right), fat, swarthy, and moustached, sits at a table, holding out a cheque for £100.000 to Lord Burford. Her Cheque Book lies on the table. He steps forward, hat in hand, left hand on breast, in profile to the right. She says: Why you seem to be a good looking hard working young fellow, but I must tell you my business is extensive And I shall expect you will employ your time day and night for the benefit of the Concern, you must also be humble and submissive, should this be realized on Trial I will make you a Sleeping Partner. And here’s a trifle for you to buy a pair of gloves. He answers with eager deference: You may depend upon it Madam I shall endeavour to give you every satisfaction. I shall be very attentive and if I can’t get through the business as you like, you are at liberty to employ an Assistant. Mrs. Coutts is décolletée and bejewelled, wearing a turban trimmed with a paradise-plume. The gold-bordered tablecloth is weighted with balls inscribed £20,000 and £9,000. Large money-bags are on the floor behind her: £800,000 and . . . 000. Under her chair are a glass and a decanter of White Tape. Behind her is a picture of heaped sovereigns and money-bags. Other pictures are a cow looking over the wall of Mrs C–s Dairy, and (left) a castle: View near St Albans. The chairs are decorated with coins pouring from cornucopias.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Cruikshank, Robert, 1789-1856, printmaker.
  • Title: A beau-clerk for a banking-concern [graphic] / Robt. Cruikshank fecit.
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. March 1825 by G. Humphrey, 27 St. James’s Street, London, [March 1825]

Catalog Record

825.03.00.02+

Acquired June 2024

Actor of all work

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“Wellington sits behind a small cloth-covered table flanked by eight other representations of himself, as depicted in recent caricatures, apparently all by W. Heath. The arrangement is evidently that of Charles Mathews’ ‘At Homes’, see British Museum Satires No. 14714, &c., Wellington, like Mathews, being in propria persona at the table. In this guise he wears the robes (indistinguishable from Coronation robes) and collar of the Garter and the order of the Golden Fleece and a (crown-like) ducal coronet; his head is turned in profile to the right. Immediately below him, the head and hands of another Wellington, who is crouching on the floor, project from the tablecloth; he grasps a royal crown, and wears a cap coloured blue and resembling a tam-o’-shanter, but perhaps intended for a coronet. The other Wellingtons, all standing (left to right): [1] A mute as in British Museum Satires No. 15501, in profile to the right. [2] A Grenadier, full-face and rigidly at attention, much as in British Museum Satires No. 15768, but without the musket. [3] A ratcatcher stooping to the left and touching his hat, the cage in his left hand (cf. British Museum Satires No. 15806). [4] Aged and cloaked, wearing spectacles, with bowed head, he clasps a cross in both hands. [5] The old woman in a soldier’s coat of British Museum Satires No. 15721, facing, and apparently in angry altercation with, the seated Wellington. [6] The coachman of British Museum Satires No. 15731, in profile to the left, holding shaft and lash of his whip as if they were the reins of a four-in-hand which he is driving. [7] Wellington in uniform, directed to the left, wearing his plumed cocked hat and holding up with a furtive expression a sword with a damaged blade in a dilapidated scabbard. [8] A mummy-case with an aperture to show Wellington’s head with the forefingers compressing his mouth; below the aperture is the word ‘Mum’. (Apparently from a satire on Wellington’s silence as to his intentions on Catholic Relief until the eve of the opening of Parliament, see British Museum Satires No. 15659.) There is a background of curtains. Cf. British Museum Satires No. 15787.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Heath, William, 1795-1840, printmaker.
  • Title: Actor of all work [graphic] / [man with an umbrella] Esqr.
  • Publication: [London] : Pub. June 15, 1829, by T. McLean, 26 Haymarket …, [15 June 1829]

Catalog Record

829.06.15.01+

Acquired May 2023

Lady P aragraph championizing

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“Lady Perceval sits at an ornate writing-table, pen in hand. A serpent issues from her breast, coils round her arm, and darts its fang at the tip of her pen. She frowns meditatively, saying, “Now then for something strong but not libellous, I hate half measures we must rush upon the enemy–suprise [sic], astound him–and unhorse him by Terror–John Bull have at you! I’ll open your eyes–.” The table is littered with papers and books; some are docketed: ‘For the Star’, ‘To the Editor of the Star’, ‘For the News’, ‘Extracts from the Book’, one is ‘Copy’, a book is ‘Politicks’, and a large paper is displayed: ‘Select Scraps from Shakespeare–with my own comments “Some achieve greatness “some have greatness thrust upon them …. Querie was this not the case with Nunky [Spencer Perceval], why not happen …. Son–.’ Other papers and books lie on the floor: newspapers are ‘The News’ and ‘The Star’, a paper is headed ‘Memorandums Billy Austin [see British Museum Satires No. 12027]–the Will–‘ Books are ‘Life of Lord Nelson’, ‘A very Woman by Massinger’, ‘Machiavael’, ‘Johnson’, ‘Indiscretion a Novel’, ‘Don Quixote’. On the left John Mitford, identified by a letter in his coat-pocket ‘To John Mit–‘, stands facing the wall, and hanging one picture over another: he places a view of a country inn, ‘The Tigers Head’ above one of ‘[War]burton’s Mad House’, saying, “Come this is a prettier picture than the other [left] shall catch some fish in this neighbourhood.” He is fashionably dressed, wearing Hessian boots. This picture is on the left of a row: a large picture of ‘Alecto’ (cf. British Museum Satires No. 7721), naked, wreathed in serpents, and brandishing scourge and fire-brand, with a background of flames hangs between three-quarter length portraits of ‘Lady Douglas’ and ‘Lady A Hamilton’. The former covers her face with a tragic gesture; a dagger lies on a table beside her, she seems to contemplate suicide. The latter clasps her hands. Over the chimneypiece (right) is a three-quarter length portrait of ‘Lord P . . . . val’ concealing his face with his hat; below, and partly hiding the frame, is a statuette of a knight killing a dragon. On the chimney-piece there is also a bottle labelled ‘Cephalic’ (for diseases of the head). Papers are burning in the grate, one inscribed ‘To[o] Libellous’.”–British Museum online catalogue.

 

  • Printmaker: Williams, Charles, active 1797-1830, printmaker.
  • Title: Lady P aragraph championizing [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. March 4th, 1814, by S.W. Fores, No. 50 Piccadilly, [4 March 1814]

Catalog Record

814.03.04.02

Acquired November 2022

The Complete assistant for the landed proprietor, estate and house agent

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title page

  • Title: The Complete assistant for the landed proprietor, estate and house agent, land-steward, proctor, architect, surveyor, builder, auctioneer, appraiser, upholsterer, cabinet-maker &c. &c. &c. : Part I. On the valuation of leaseholds … : Part II. Of agreement stamps … : also the furnishing department …
  • Publication: London : Priestley and Weale, 5, High Street, Bloomsbury., 1824.
  • Manufacture: London : Printed by Richard Watts, Crown Court, Temple Bar.

Catalog Record

63 824 C73

Acquired January 2021

Le plan de campagne de 1806

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A French satire on the British administration, who are gathered around a table with bottles and glasses (two of which are toppled over) and a battle plan (’Plan de Berlin’) drawn on the tablecloth. In1806, French forces under Napoleon occupied Prussia, pursued the remnants of the shattered Prussian Army, and captured Berlin.

 

  • Title: Le plan de campagne de 1806, ou, Les deliberations des politiques anglais sur la guere [graphic].
  • Publication: A Paris : Chez Martinet, [1806]

Catalog Record

806.00.00.54+

Acquired May 2020

Effects of passion

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A scene in a sitting room, a man in a fit of anger kicks over a chair and table set with tea; a pitcher, cups and saucers, tongs and other tableware are in flight or shattered on the floor. The man holds his wig in his left hand as a woman looks on with fear. Two cats fight in front of a fireplace above which hangs a seascape with rough waters and lightening. On the back wall another painting shows a man standing over a woman.

  • Title: Effects of passion [graphic].
  • Publication: [Alnwick] : Printed and published by W. Davison, Alnwick, [between 1812 and 1817]

Catalog record 

812.00.00.118

Acquired September 2019

Let us all be unhappy together

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“Popular print, satire, after print published by Laurie & Whittle in 1794 (British Museum satires no. 8596): five men sit at a small square table on which are glasses and an empty punch-bowl, all have expressions of deep melancholy: one reverses his glass, another breaks his pipe, the bowl of which still smokes, the third weeps, the fourth looks down with a gesture of deprecating misery, the fifth looking towards the viewer.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Title: Let us all be unhappy together [graphic].
  • Publication: [Alnwick] : Printed and published by W. Davison, Alnwick, [between 1812 and 1817]

Catalog Record

812.00.00.98

Acquired September 2019

Dido in despair

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Dido in despair. Detailed description below

“A parody of British Museum Satires No. 9752, Gillray’s ‘Dido in Despair!’ The Queen takes the place of Lady Hamilton, in a similar pose but tearing her long black hair with more of rage and less of grief. She wears a bracelet on each arm, one inscribed ‘BB’ (for Bergami), the other ‘MW’ (for Wood). On the floor are gifts to the Queen. Her bare right foot rests on a large cake inscribed ‘MW’ on which are various emblems: a large crown, which she kicks over, busts of Wood, Bergami, Lieut. Hownam, and an unidentified person; also a goat, an ass, and a cat. This stands on a paper: ‘Mr Trifle’s Love to the Q[ueen]’. A huge round of beef is ticketed ‘With Mr Suets Love to the Q–n’; with this is a roll of ‘Cat’s Meat’. A model of a pair of stays enclosed in a glass case stands on two papers: ‘Glass-blower’s Delight’ and ‘O stay my love my Cary dear’. A pair of breeches of metal is ‘For Bat [Bergami] or Cat ad libitum from the Brazier[s]’. Caricatures lie near a pair of slippers inscribed ‘BB’; the uppermost is of Bergami drinking at a table between Wood and the Queen. A book is ‘Catalogue of Fancy Men’. The glass on the dressing-table is topped by a crescent; on it hang miniatures of Bergami and Wood (cf. No. 13858). The table is covered with decanters, one labelled ‘Brandy’ [see British Museum Satires No. 14175], glass, pill-box, and boxes of ‘Rouge’, ‘Brick dust’, and ‘Court Plaister’. The curtains of the bed are fringed with gold and hang from a pelmet. In place of Gillray’s open sash-window is a closed French window; outside is a landscape, with two asses, and a lake (Como) with a sailing-boat.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Lane, Theodore, 1800-1828, printmaker.
  • Title: Dido in despair [graphic].
  • Publication: London : Pubd. by G. Humphrey, 27 St. James’s St., April 3rd, 1821.

Catalog Record 

821.04.03.01

Acquired March 2019