Run neighbours, run, St. Al-ns is quadrilling it

“The Duchess of St. Albans, immensely fat, florid, and bejewelled, and a stout elderly naval officer wearing loose wide trousers, and apparently doing hornpipe steps, his hands on his hips, dance side by side with rollicking abandon. The others of the set: one man and two ladies on the left and one lady and two men on the right dance rigidly erect, and watch the central pair with hauteur; the men are dandies, the women slim and fashionable. The duchess has a swirling paradise-plume in her towering loops of hair, above tossing ringlets.”–British Museum online catalogue.

• Printmaker: Heath, William, 1795-1840, printmaker.
  
• Title: Run neighbours, run, St. Al-ns is quadrilling it [graphic] / [man with an umbrella] Esq.
  
• Publication: [London] : Pub. by T. McLean, 26 Haymarket, May 1829.

Catalog Record 

829.05.00.08+

Acquired October 2018

A short ride in the Long Walk, or, The ponies posed!!

“George IV drives Lady Conyngham in a four-wheeled pony-chaise. He is chubbily obese, in loose trousers and braided jacket, wearing a cap poised on his naturalistic curls (cf. British Museum Satires no. 14637). He turns to the enormously corpulent lady. Both overweight the little chaise, and the very small ponies strain desperately. Behind and on the extreme left is the head of the horse ridden by an attendant. They have just passed a gate with a small octagonal lodge. The drive is bordered by a paling; in the background are stags.”–British Museum online catalogue.

• Printmaker: Heath, William, 1795-1840, printmaker.
  
• Title: A short ride in the Long Walk, or, The ponies posed!! [graphic].
  
• Publication: [London] : Pub. March 28, 1824, by S.W. Fores, 41 Picadilly [sic], London, [28 March 1824]

Catalog Record

824.03.28.01+

Acquired October 2018

A kiss at the congress

“Louis XVIII, grotesquely obese (left), and the Tsar kiss, their lips touching. Louis, whose head is much the larger, grasps the back of Alexander’s head; the Tsar bends from the waist to reach beyond the King’s paunch. Louis, with the gouty legs and old-fashioned gold-embroidered coat and waistcoat of English caricature, wears the order of the Saint Esprit. The Tsar, in uniform, has the high pinched waist and bulging breast of the dandy (cf. British Museum Satires No. 13029) with enormous cavalry boots to the thigh, huge epaulets, and a sash, but no sword. He says: “My Dear Legitimate Brother (tho I believe I call Boney the same) I am happy to serve you tho your cursed Country Men almost destroyed my country–” Louis answers: “Ma Chere [sic] Ami, I am so rejoiced at your Brotherly Kindness in putting off our payment & takeing off your Troops that I could Devour you.” The embrace is watched by two Frenchmen on the left, and on the right by the King of Prussia, the Emperor of Austria, and a young man (? Napoleon’s son). Frederick William wears dandified uniform like that of the Tsar but with long trousers; he supports a large sword hanging from a belt, and holds a huge cocked hat; he watches the embrace with distaste, saying, “I am obliged to follow the Leaders at Present.” Francis I says: “I must agree for the moment but I have a Grandson.” One Frenchman wears uniform with top-boots; he says: “De Legitimate francais be too much for John Bull de manoeuvre by Gar ve want de Time & we show dem vat ve intend.” His companion, an elderly man wearing a court suit with a powdered wig (Richelieu attended the Conference on behalf of France) says delightedly: “Ah-ha he do him vid Compliments & den we do them out of the Money.” Behind them is a row of melancholy knock-kneed Grenadiers.”–British Museum online catalogue.

• Printmaker: Heath, William, 1795-1840, printmaker.
  
• Title: A kiss at the congress [graphic] : a legitimate embrace at Aix la Chapelle between Alexander the Great and Louis the Large, & others of the dramatis persona.
  
• Publication: [London] : Pub. Nov. 18, 1818, by S.W. Fores, 50 Piccadilli [sic] & 114 Oxford Street, [18 November 1818]

Catalog Record 

818.11.18.01+

Acquired October 2018

The bear broke loose

“A muzzled bear sits up, as if begging, on a fat woman who lies on her back. She says: “Gemini! what a Weight! my poor dear Mr Dripping was quite a Feather to him”. The bear’s keeper (right) raises his club, saying, “Down Bruin! I’ll teach you to ride the high Horse”. A dog (right) springs towards the bear. A man (left) runs off, saying, “D——m me I’ll be off! . . . [etc.]”.”–British Museum online catalogue.

• Printmaker: Grinagain, Giles, printmaker, artist.
  
• Title:The bear broke loose [graphic] / Giles Grinagain invt. et fect.
  
• Publication:[London] : Published Decbr. 20th, 1801, by S. Howitt, Panton Street, [20 December 1801]

Catalog Record 

801.12.20.03

Acquired November 2017

Christmass boxes

A satire, divided into quarters, with four small scenes of different episodes of persons trying to collect their Christmas boxes. In the first square in the upper left, a plump supplicant in an apron holds out his hat to a scowling-faced man with a kerchief tied over his hat and a walking stick under his arm as they meet in a road outside a building with a lamp. Behind him on the wall is a sign posted “Miser’. In response to the request, the miser says “Give you a Christmass box. Curse you don’t I pay you for your meat.” On the top row, right, a thin man (a grave digger?) with a pipe in his mouth, bows to an obese clergyman, with a fat dog at his heel, as they stand in the graveyard of a church. The gravedigger asks, “Most worthy Parson give me a Christmass box.” The Parson replies, “Give you a halter you rascal. What should I give you a Christmass box for.” In the lower left, clergyman shakes his walking stick at a surprised man who is carrying a large box on his back and secured with a strap over his forehead. The clergyman says to the laborer, “If you ever ask me for a Christmass box again, I’ll physic you to death.” They are standing in front of building with a lantern and sign that reads “Gargle Apothycary.” The fourth square, lower right, shows old, hag-faced woman with a hat and muff standing in a parlor as she slaps the face of an astonished footman. She tells him, “Take that you saucy rascal for a Xmass box!” He replies, “What’s that for. I did not want a box on the ear, not I.”

• Printmaker: Newton, Richard, 1777-1798, printmaker, artist.
  
• Title: Christmass boxes [graphic] / drawn & etchd. by Rd. Newton.
  
• Publication: London : Pubd. by Wm. Holland, 50 Oxford St., Decemr. 25, 1794.

Catalog Record 

794.12.25.02+

Acquired May 2017

I wish you the same madam with all my heart!!

An obese, angry-faced man in a night cap sits in a chair in glaring out the window, his two gouty feet propped up on a pillow and his arms both also bandaged and the right arm in a sling. He is wearing a night cap and a heavy, lined robe; a cane rests against the arm of his upholstered chair. On the table to his right and on the floor to his left are many bottles of medicine with labels. Behind him on the wall is a framed picture of a volcano. decorating three panes of glass are sprigs of holly (?) with red berries.

• Title: I wish you the same madam with all my heart!! [graphic].
  
• Publication: [London] : Published Decr. 1832 by O. Hodgson, Cloth Fair, Smithfield, [December 1832]

Catalog Record 

832.12.00.01

Acquired March 2018

Over weight, or, The sinking fund, or, The downfall of faro

“Lady Buckinghamshire, enormously fat, is seated in profile to the right in an open chariot which sinks through a rectangular aperture in front of the Weigh-House, its weight being too great for the apparatus for weighing wagons. She throws up her arms and one leg, dropping her whip and reins. The hind legs of the plunging horses are in the pit; they snort wildly; the chariot and horses resemble those of Phaeton burlesqued. On the chariot is an oval escutcheon with four quarterings (cards, dice, wine-bottle, and glass) and the letter ‘B’. On the right (behind) are two street-lamps on tall pyramidal posts.”–British Museum online catalogue.

• Printmaker: Newton, Richard, 1777-1798, printmaker, artist.
  
• Title: Over weight, or, The sinking fund, or, The downfall of faro [graphic] / Rd. Newton del. et fecit.
  
• Publication: London : Pubd. by S.W. Fores, corner of Sackville Street, March 14, 1797.

Catalog Record and Digital Collection

797.03.14.01+

Acquired November 2016

A street accident

A dustman bends over a large woman who has fallen and lifts her by placing his hands under her arms. She looks up angerly and shakes her fist at the dustman’s young assistant in an apron who looks on (left) with a smile and hand raised. Two dogs jump around the group.

• Creator: Nixon, John, -1818, artist.
  
• Title: [A street accident] [art original].
  
• Production: [England], [not before 1804]

Catalog Record &Digital Collection

Drawings N736 no. 6

Acquired August 2016

John Bulls belly and its members

“John Bull, grossly obese, sits in an armchair directed to the right, smoking and holding a goblet inscribed ‘For the Belly’ in his left hand. His paunch overweights his legs; from below it projects a bunch of four big seals, shaped like mitres, two inscribed ‘Dublin’ and ‘Armagh’. These dangle against his left leg which is bare except for a tattered green cloth and rests on straw. On the other leg, which has gouty misshapen toes, are a neat stocking and shoe. From the left foot rise the words: ‘Arrah, now Mr Belly don’t be after thinking I’m satisfied–if all the rest are, Och! bother your talk, about dispersing the good things you receive sure none of them come towards me lower than your watch chain: have’nt I been neglected, Och, its withering I am–& tho’ some of your bowels yearn over me & say I might be cured, don’t part of your hard heart wish me Cut down to the bare bone–but Oh, honey if you get into a row, won’t you do better with two stout legs than only one of them–.’ John stares down towards the bare toe, which is only just in his range of vision; his words are in the cloud of smoke issuing from his pipe: ‘Never mind my poor little limb,–as to the belly Clothed in scarlet & fine lawn I smoke its selfishness, & as its head & Governor will see you righted.'”–British Museum online catalogue.

• Printmaker: Seymour, Robert, 1798-1836, printmaker.
  
• Title: John Bulls belly and its members [graphic] / Esop fecit.
  
• Published: London : Published by Thos. McLean, 26 Haymarket, 1829.

Catalog Record

829.00.00.109

Acquired January 2015

Sin ie cure

A full-length caricature of an obese clergy man who wears a bishop’s hat (?) and smokes a long pipe as he walks left. He carries a pig and a chicken under his left arm. He holds a Bible in his left hand, and he carries a bottle in his pocket. He has a very large nose and a round checks. His very large belly is exaggerated further in graphite.

• Creator: Grant, C. J. (Charles Jameson), active 1830-1852, artist.
• Title: Sin ie cure [drawing].
• Created: [England, between 1830 and 1852]

Catalog Record & Digital Collection

Drawings G761 no. 2 Box 123

Acquired November 2013