Cossacks, flying to annoy vide Buonaparte’s 28th bulletin

description below

Three Cossacks on horseback pretend to flee from French soldiers. See British Museum online catalogue

  • Title: Cossacks, flying to annoy [graphic] : vide Buonaparte’s 28th bulletin / T. Kelly.
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. by J. Sidebotham, Sackville St., [not before 1813]

Catalog Record

813.00.00.26

Acquired June 2024

See-Dan

description below

“Burdett (right) and Brougham (left) as chairmen, carry (left to right) a bottomless sedan-chair enclosing O’Connell, who is forced to walk rapidly, looking from the window towards Brougham to say ‘Mighty like a walk this after all’. He wears barrister’s wig and gown. The chair is surmounted by shamrock and is inscribed ‘M.P.’ The chairmen wear livery coats; Burdett is bareheaded, and wears his usual top-boots and breeches; Brougham wears barrister’s wig and bands with a battered hat.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Heath, William, 1795-1840, printmaker.
  • Title: See-Dan [graphic] / [man with umbrella] Esqr.
  • Publication: [London] : Pub. May 1829 by T. McLean, 26 Haymarket …, May 1829.

Catalog Record

829.05.00.12+

Acquired June 2024

Ben Holbrook, a walking stationer

description below

Benjamin Holbrook, shown full-length in profile, walking to the left, holding with a long white staff in his right hand, clutching two memorandum books in his left hand, heading towards Fleet Market, with the west front of St. Paul’s Cathedral visible in the background. His eyes being closed and the presence of the staff indicate his blindness, and the patched elbow of his three-quarter-length coat his poverty.

  • Artist: Nixon, John, -1818, artist.
  • Title: Ben Holbrook, a walking stationer [art original] / JN [monogram] fect. 1783.
  • Production: [England], [1783]

Catalog Record

Drawings N736 no. 11 Box D141

Acquired May 2024

Caricature of a grotesque old woman

description belowdescription

Watercolor drawing of a grotesque old woman, with lines from Thomas Cambell’s poem “Pleasures of Hope” (1799) written in ink below: The world was sad, The garden was a wild, And man the hermit sigh’d ’till woman smil’d.

On the verso a cropped impression of Plate 21, from the Miseries of London, captioned with a letterpress text cut from the work: See BMSat 10865: At the corner of Chancery Lane a fashionably dressed man and a scavenger have collided violently: both register pain and anger. Hackney coachmen on a stand facing the end of the street watch with amusement. A man behind (left) chases his hat, 1 March 1807.

  • Title: [Caricature of a grotesque old woman] [art original].
  • Production: [England], [not before 1818]

Catalog Record

Drawings Un58 no. 99 Box D166

Acquired September 2023

 

Journeymen hatters dipping their master in the dye

description below

Four employees of a hatter force their employer into a bath of black dye. One of the journeymen holds a beaver by its tail as it cries “He robbed me of my coat, and blam’d others for it.” A young apprentice entering from the right holds out a fish to the beaver. In the foreground a black demon whose speech balloon reads, “Push him through my lads. I’ll adopt him as one of my children.”

  • Printmaker: Charles, William, 1776-1820, printmaker, artist.
  • Title: Journeymen hatters dipping their master in the dye [graphic] / Charles del. et sculp.
  • Publication: [London?] : [publisher not identified], publishd. April 14th, 1806.

Catalog Record

806.04.14.01+

Acquired April 2024

Destruction of the furious elephant at Exeter Change

description below

“The death of Chunee, a large Asian elephant, kept at the Exeter Change menagerie; to the left; a group of soldiers and others, all carrying guns; some observing and others firing on Chunee to the right; who, roaring, breaks the bars of his wooden cage; blood pouring from many wounds and soaking the floor; the keeper, in shirtsleeves, stabbing the elephant with a bayonet; smoke obscuring the scene; behind; small iron-barred cages containg an agitated lion and tiger respectively; above hutches containing monkeys, one grasping the bars.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Cruikshank, George, 1792-1878, printmaker.
  • Title: Destruction of the furious elephant at Exeter Change [graphic] / G. Cruikshank fect.
  • Publication: London : Pubd. March 6th, 1826, by J. Harrison, 56 Long Acre, [6 March 1826]

Catalog Record

826.03.06.01+

Acquired September 2023

The political cocks

description below

“Two fighting-cocks, with the heads of Napoleon and Pitt, face each other across the English Channel. Napoleon (left) has a large ruff of tricolour feathers and enormously long spurs, but his wings and tail feathers are clipped. His cliff is the higher; he leans forward, saying, “Eh Master Billy, if I could but take a flight over this Brook I would soon stop your Crowing, I would Knock you off that Perch, I swear by Mahomet, the Pope and all the Idols I have ever Worshiped.” Pitt stands on a large royal crown which brings his feet almost to a level with those of Bonaparte; he stands erect, thus towering above his rival; he has very short spurs but a fine tail and wings; he crows: “Tuck a roo – too that you never can do!!!” Below them lies the sea with a fleet of ships in full sail close to the English coast.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Williams, Charles, active 1797-1830, printmaker.
  • Title: The political cocks [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. March 27th, 1803, by S.W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly, [27 March 1803]

Catalog Record

803.03.27.01

Acquired November 2023

Adulation, or, A coronation oration by the Jack Pudding of the nation

description below

“George IV, crowned, and with orb and sceptre, sits on a coronation chair in Westminster Abbey (right). The Archbishop, well characterized, stands beside him, holding his mitre, his right hand on the chair. On the King’s right hand stands Londonderry (Castlereagh) in Garter robes; other peers stand behind him. All watch the antics of Canning, dressed in parti-coloured clothes as a merry-andrew or buffoon. He kneels on the dais at the King’s feet, arms flung wide; at his feet is a high-crowned hat with a peacock’s feather; on the back of his tunic are the letters M P and P C. He declaims: The delight of the Nation at the Celebration of your Majesty’s Coronation, the Exultation throughout the Creation exceeds all Imagination. the Expectation to which the Anticipation of this Consumation has given occasion is beyond Contemplation; we offer the Oblation of our Congratulation, without Hesitation or Trepidation; no Tribulation can effect a Cessation of the Sensation which pervades every Station; no Situation in whatever Deprivation will utter an Execration for the Association are in Preparation to effect an Extirpation of all Defamation. We hope the Expectation of a Decollation will produce Annihilation of all Deviation from strict Regulation; we submit to Subjugation without Hesitation, and we offer our Oration with gratefull Adoration upon this Jollification. The King composedly touches (or kicks) Canning’s chin with his toe. Peeresses stand in a gallery across the north transept, holding their coronets. Above them is a second and more crowded gallery.”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Williams, Charles, active 1797-1830, printmaker.
  • Title: Adulation, or, A coronation oration by the Jack Pudding of the nation [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. July 1821 by S.W. Fores, Piccadilly, [July 1821]

Catalog Record

821.07.00.04

Acquired September 2023

The talle-ho’ parson standing at bay

description below

A clergyman in bands and gown, his hat on the pavement, squares up to a watchman holding a lantern and stick, his fists raised. He has evidently knocked out one watchman already, who lies on the ground, wig dislodged and still touching his lantern, while a third approaches from the left. Possibly from a series featuring a pugnacious parson’s brushes with the law.

  • Title: The talle-ho’ parson standing at bay [graphic].
  • Publication: [London] : Pubd. by Darly, 39 Strand, Sepr. 14, 1778.

Catalog Record

778.09.14.01+

Acquired September 2023

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