Tag Archives: Watercolors

Sketches of traditional Indian dress

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Collection of twelve 19th-century Anglo-Indian representations of traditional Indian clothing for various trades and stations of life, each captioned below with the subject’s occupation. Included are two female subjects, ‘My Ayah or Lady’s Maid’ and a water bearer, alongside ten male subjects. Among the depicted males are a ‘Native Officer’, ‘A Peon or Policeman’, and a ‘Moonshee or Teacher of Languages’, the latter having the only geographical indication of origin (‘Bangalore’ given to its verso).

  • Creator: O’Connor, Mrs., attributed name.
  • Title: [Sketches of traditional Indian dress] [art original].
  • Production: [India?], [1831 or later]

Catalog Record

Drawings Oc18 no. 1

Acquired December 2023

Caroline, Queen of England

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Portrait of Queen Caroline seated on a red armchair wearing a black dress with frilled collar and a black feather hat.

  • Creator: Contencin, P., artist.
  • Title: Caroline, Queen of England [graphic] / drawn by P. Contencin.
  • Production: [England], [approximately 1820]

Catalog Record

Drawings Un58 no. 98 Box D166

Acquired July 2023

The restive Pegasus, or, The dramatic author foiled

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pencil sketch of a man on a horse
“A man in ragged but quasi-fashionable dress rides (right to left) an ass through a river which flows past a steep mountain. The animal jibs, with ears set back; the rider raises a whip in each hand. He wears, and uses, three pairs of spurs, and attached to his shoulders and to the ass is a monstrous pile of bladders inscribed respectively ‘Repartee’, ‘Nonsensical Verses’, ‘Catastrophe’, ‘Sentiment’, ‘Blasphemies’, ‘Puns’, ‘Duels’, ‘Double Entendres’, ‘Metaphors’, ‘Ghosts’, ‘Melting Speeches’, ‘Squibs’, ‘Dialogue’, ‘Daggers Poisons’.”–British Museum online catalogue, description of the print engraved after this drawing.
A rough pencil sketch of the same design but lacking much of the detail on the verso.
  • Creator: Grinagain, Giles, artist.
  • Title: The restive Pegasus, or, The dramatic author foiled in his endeavor to ascend Parnassus [art original].
  • Production: [England], [1802]

Catalog Record

Drawings G867 no. 1 Box D205

Acquired September 2023

The history and antiquities of the county of Essex

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Extra-illustrated and expanded to 5 volumes, each volume with an added printed title page dated 1908 and bound in early 20th-century red crushed levant full morocco gilt

  • Author: Morant, Philip, 1700-1770.
  • Title: The history and antiquities of the county of Essex : compiled from the best and most ancient historians, from Domesday-book, Inquisitiones post mortem, and other the most valuable records and mss. &c. / the whole digested, improved, perfected, and brought down to the present time, by Philip Morant ; illustrated with copper plates.
  • Published: London : Printed for T. Osborne …, J. Whiston …, S. Baker …, L. Davis and C. Reymers … and B. White …, 1768.

Catalog Record

Folio 64 Es75 768

Acquired September 2023

They took her away

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A young woman presumably a prostitute, bare breasted and with a dejected look on her face, is being led up the steps of a building by a beadle or constable, her head bowed in shame. Her infant has been left in the arms of an older woman, stands at the base of the stairs on the right. Another, older child, seated on a lower step in the foreground, looks up at the scene. The building has barred windows.

  • Artist: Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827, artist.
  • Title: [They took her away] [art original] / T. Rowlandson.
  • Production: [England], [late 18th century?]

Catalog Record

Drawings R79 no. 23 Box D207

Acquired June 2023

Human nature is fond of novelty

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An old officer in uniform with a wrinkled face and carbuncles looks lustfully at a pretty young woman as they walk together on a path, his hand grasping hers.

  • Artist: Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827, artist.
  • Title: Human nature is fond of novelty – Pliny [art original].
  • Production: [England], [late 18th century?]

Catalog Record

Drawings R79 no. 24 Box D146

Acquired June 2023

Changing horses at Clermont

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A single-horse carriage is stopped in front of a rustic inn or roadhouse, with two caricatured Frenchmen (one a postillion wearing enormous boots) engaged in changing out the horse. An occupant of the carriage hands money out the window to a peasant woman holding an infant and accompanied by a young boy; two other shabbily dressed figures are nearby next to a tree, one of them playing a makeshift drum. In the doorway of the building stands a young woman, and to the left a man under an archway stands with arms crossed; both watch the scene unfold. In the background a postilion rides away on horseback, whip extended into the air.

  • Artist: Byron, Frederick George, 1764-1792, artist.
  • Title: [Changing horses at Clermont] [art original] / F.G. Byron.
  • Production: [France], [1790]

Catalog Record

Drawer Drawings B995 no. 1

Acquired June 2023

Portrait of Mary Anne Clarke

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Full-length portrait of a woman, likely to be Mary Anne Clarke, wearing a white neoclassical dress and standing on a balcony with a curtain drapped from the left corner.

 

  • Artist: Buck, Adam, 1759-1833, artist.
  • Title: [Portrait of Mary Anne Clarke] [art original] / Adam Buck.
  • Production: London, 1804.

Catalog Record

Drawings B922 no. 1

Acquired November 2022

Gentleman escorting a young woman to a waiting carriage

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A gentleman leads a young woman and her mother (or chaperone) to the door of a carriage, held open by the coach driver who wears a top hat and a peculiar grin. In the background is a house or inn with a partially drawn figure (in ink) watching or emerging from the door. On the verso, pencil sketches of two men in top hats, and a smaller figure lightly sketched with a top hat in black ink.

 

  • Creator: Cruikshank, George, 1792-1878, artist.
  • Title: [Gentleman escorting a young woman to a waiting carriage] [art original] / Geo. Cruikshank.
  • Production: [England], [1830s?]

Catalog Record

Drawings C889 no. 9 Box D115

Acquired November 2022

Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow

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watercolor of tall ships on the water

  • Author: Ludlow, Edmund, 1617?-1692.
  • Title: Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow : with a collection of original papers, and the case of King Charles the First.
  • Published: London : Printed for T. Becket and P.A. DeHondt, and T. Cadell, in the Strand; and T. Evans, in King Street, Covent Garden, MDCCLXXI [1771]

Catalog Record

Quarto 63 771 L945

Acquired April 2023