Text within banners surrounding central image, clockwise from upper right: Toupees; Wholesale & Retail; Cushion’s; Braids; Perfumery; Wigs
File 66 770 B674
Acquired November 2021
A group portrait of various doctors and quacks, including Mrs Mapp, Dr. Joshua Ward and John Taylor. A version of the print also published with lettering “The company of undertakers”. The three named quacks occupy the top, twelve other ‘doctors’ are situated in the lower half; most of them have gold canes held up to their noses, one is dipping his finger into a urinal while another holds it.
Hogarth 817.00.00.24
Acquired January 2021
A print with 16 numbered oval images, four rows of four images, showing women hairstyles and hairpieces decorated with ribbons and lace.
760.00.00.110+
Acquired November 2019
A view of the interior of a riding-school: A number of men riding round in a circle; those in the foreground ride from right to left, those in the background from left to right. The riding-master stands in the centre, pointing with hand and cane, and grinning at a short fat man in a clerical wig who is running across the room, alarmed at the horses. A short obese man in back-view on the extreme right, who is about to mount his horse has been identified as Captain Grose. Next him is a man with a grotesque impression of alarm riding a plunging horse. Among the riders are two with clerical wigs. One horse is galloping, out of control, the others are quietly ambling round. Two sides of a high rectangular room or hall are visible; in each wall are two high arch-topped windows.
780.02.15.03++
Acquired November 2019
“Husband and wife dressing in a bedroom, the tent-shaped bed-curtains forming a background. The woman is thin and has a mole on her face, the man broad, but their deficiencies are similar. She stands (left), about to raise her shift and adjust false posteriors. A false bust, false teeth, and wig, simulating natural curls, are on the table behind her, on which are also the man’s wig and an eye in a tumbler of water. Both are bald. He sits (right) in shirt and breeches, about to put on a pair of stockings with false calves of fleece. Both register sour dissatisfaction with themselves and each other.”–British Museum online catalogue, description of an earlier state.
820.01.20.02+
Acquired June 2019
“This engraving represents a circular building, with conical roof of tiles, shown in two sections, and partly in perspective. Within the building is a large wheel turned by a horse and giving motion to a considerable number of spindles, to which are attached disks; on each of the disks are several razors, which are thus set in action on the faces of the men who apply their cheeks to openings in the inner wall of the building. Exterior to this inner wall is a gallery where stand the men who are thus expeditiously shaved; their hats hang on pegs, each over the hole to which the owner has applied himself. In the gallery several men are finishing or preparing for their toilettes. The operation of dressing a wig is shown below the wheel, on our right, where many combs are placed on a drum which revolves like a water-wheel before a man’s wig, placed on a block near it.”–British Museum catalogue, description of an earlier state.
749.11.29.01+
Acquired November 2018
“Fox and Sheridan (left) sit together at the head of a rectangular table on which is a punch-bowl, &c, looking with dismay at whigs (right), who advance to hurl their wigs at a large pile of wigs on the left (inscribed ‘The Heads having Scratched out of the Club’), or retire, having already done so. Fox and Sheridan wear enormous wigs, the former says, “Brother: Brother: we are all in the wrong” (showing that they are Peachum and Lockit [Like Newcastle and Fox in 1756 (British Museum Satires no. 3371), Burke and Sheridan in 1790 (British Museum Satires no. 7627), Burke and Fox in 1791 (British Museum Satires no. 7856).] in Gay’s ‘Beggar’s Opera’, II. ii). Before Fox is a list with names scored through. Sheridan grasps a bottle of ‘Sherry’. A couple advance together, in the act of hurling their large wigs at the pile; one says, “I will Scratch out my Name in hopes of getting in for the City” (probably Nathaniel Newnham, returned for the City 1784, but defeated in 1790, cf. British Museum Satires no. 7162). The other is perhaps Windham. The only one of the retiring wigless Whigs who is characterized is Burke. All say: “We have erased our Names for ever from the Club, when the Artful & Ambitious designs of a Faction are carried on under a Mask of Prudential Reform & when the leading Members are Notoriously known to Carry on a secret Correspondence with the Avowed Enemies of the Constitution they Affect to Support & Defend it is high time for all prudent & real friends to that Constitution to leave them to their Just Punishment, the Contemp of all true Friends to their King and Constitution.”–British Museum online catalogue.
793.03.17.01
Acquired June 2018
The interior of barber shop: On the left a man stands before a mirror, face contorted as he wipes his jaw, unaware of the boy behind him pointing and laughing at him as he holds the man’s pigtail in his hand. Another customer is shown in the center seated on a chair, the barber behind him about to cut off his pigtail as well. The third man sits in a chair on the right, reading a newspaper; his lower head is also shorn of its pigtail. The room show other customers as well as stands for wigs. Above the door on the right hangs a sign “R. Crop’em, hair dresser”, a second sign beneath reads “Shave for a penny. Crop for two penny.” Through the window on the left in the back, is a display of ladies’ hats.
791.10.08.02+
Acquired May 2017
“Standing whole length profile portrait of a man in an oval enclosed in a rectangle. He walks from left to right, his head thrown back, his stomach projecting. He wears spectacles, a looped hat, a large tie-wig, and holds a tasselled cane.”–British Museum online catalogue.
777.11.24.01
Acquired April 2018
A lady (Mrs. Catherine Macaulay) with an aquiline profile sits at a table opposite a clergy man (Dr. Wilson) as she writes with a quill pen. The walls are lined with full bookshelves separated in the middle by a fireplace with a mantelpiece on which sits a bust of “Alfred rex”. Both figures wear the same enormous hair as in British Museum no. 5441.
777.05.01.08
Acquired April 2018