1771

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

THE UNLUCKY DISCOVERY

Printed for Carington Bowles, Map & Printseller, No. 69 in St. Pauls Church Yard, London. Publish'd 1 Jany 1771.

A young woman sits looking downcast on her bed, shielding her face with the cloth or article of clothing from the jabbing, admonishing finger of a scrowling nun, who holds a man's shirt in her other hand. The shirt and the other clothing appear to be evidence of a lover's visit, likely through the open window high on the right. The room looks more Mediterranean than English with its thick, mud or plaster walls and simple decor. The verse reads:

Lurks there a Vice in Female Breast like Wind,
It rages most when most it is confind:--
It will have Vent--to show us plainly still
That female Wit can rival female Will.

23.9 x 35.5 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (colour,771.1.1.4)

FLEMISH AMUSEMENT

A. Krause pinxt Wilson fecit London. Printed for Robt. Sayer No. 53 in Fleet Street. Published as the Act directs 1st Feby 1771

In a peasant kitchen, a young woman sits on a small chair, garter in hand, hem up to her knee with stocking showing. A boy or young man behind her taps on her shoulder. Two men seated a table (r.) play cards and behind them a standing woman is intent on the baby she holds. A subtext reads: "The Boorish Family invent/ Contrivances for Merriment."

35.6 x 25.2 cm.
Colonial Williamsburg (colour, 1950-718)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

The Flemish Ballad Singer/ Le Flamand chantant des Ballades

Hemskirk pinxit

R. Brookshaw fecit Printed for John Bowles, at No. 13 in Cornhill, Publish'd According to Act of Parliament, March 7, 1771

In front of an inn, village folk gather around a snaggle-toothed ballad singer elevated on a round wicker basket. He sings with gusto from a sheet ballad he holds in his hand close to his face, as he stoops over the text. To the right another man stands, his back three-quarters to the viewer, singing along from another sheet, a woman to the right of him. A small child directly in front of the basket gazes and reaches up toward the balladeer. A short man with a clay pipe and a round-faced woman stand behind him. To the far left two men stand in profile with a child, whose hat and dress are visible, between them. All the figures are plainly dressed, except for one of the men (l.) whose beret, cloak, and sword indicate he may be a soldier. The features of all are caricatured. The image is based on work by Egbert van Heemskerk, the Dutch artist active in England in the court of William III.

31.7 x 24.9 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (colour, 771.3.7.1)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

The COOK in the WHITE SHEET or the PANTRY APPARITION

Printed for Carington Bowles, Map & Printseller, No. 69 in St.Paul's Church Yard, London. Publish'd 2 May 1771

Three men, a boy, and a maid--all plainly dressed and likely servants--have been practicing some act of divination when the cook appears in the guise of a ghost . One man seated at a table covers his eyes, while the other four draw back in fright, the maid with her hands up as if to repel the ghost. The man farthest left has fallen to his knees in prayer. A spaniel with its hackles up growls at the ghost. The table contains a single candle and scattered cards. Between the cook and the table, a chair has been overturned, presumably by an occupant who started up from the table when the apparition appeared. Though the attached verse mentions this trick, it suggests a broader moral.

So while intent alone on means to thrive,
We all to overreach our Neighbours strive,
Death steals upon us (tho this Trick's but scurvy)
Spoils all our Schemes, and turns us topsy-turvy.

24 x 35.3 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (771.5.2.1)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Library of Congress

THE HARMONIC MEETING. SO-HO SO-HO

Pubd by Rt Sayer, at the Golden Buck in Fleet Street, June 1st 1771

Like The Village Magistrate, this takes on the character of beast fable and is based on work by Egbert van Heemskerk (1645-1704), the Dutch artist active in the court of William III. Eleven musicians(r.)--including a pig, goat, sheep, monkeys, cow, and cat--either play or sing along in an ensemble that takes up slightly more than the half of the frame. A simian figure in front of a large book propped on a stand directs with a paddle. Astraddle his shoulders is a cat upon whose head sits an owl. The musician's instruments are curiosities. A monkey blows an ear trumphet, the cat fiddles a clay pipe with a sword for a bow, another monkey fireplace implements, and the pig plays a saw. Toward the back (l.), a cat in maid's dress and a trousered ass with chain and emblem dance while behind them two simian revelers cheer them on, the one by whistling, fingers to lips, and the other waving a jug and glass overhead. From a ladder (l.) a monkey in a feathered cap plays a whistle and beats on a tambourine. A painting on the wall of windmills indicates the Dutch origin of this print.

25.2 x 35.6 cm.
Library of Congress (PC3+1771)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

THE FLEMMISH CONCERT

Ostrade pinxt R. Brookson fecit

22
Printed for R. Marshall, No.4 Aldermary Church Yard, July 23 1771

In a large room that may be a barn or other workspace, five men gather for the Flemish concert. There are at least two musicians. The seated man (l.) plays a fiddle and the man next to him may be singing from sheet music. The one man standing (r.) holds a tankard or glass of beer he may have just drawn from the pitcher on the bench behind him. Two other men sit and listen, one holding a clay pipe.

31.4 x 24.8 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (771.7.23.1)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

The Method of High Finishing FAMILY PICTURES

Printed for Carington Bowles, No. 69 in St. Pauls Church Yard, London.Publish'd 1st Aug 1771

A young wife leans back on a couch and looks on as her lover reaches up to draw horns on her husband's portrait high on the wall. A note, probably arranging their assignation, lies on the floor in front of them. To the far right, the husband, just returned home, his hat in hand, peeks in through the door with a shocked look on his face. The lovers are so engrossed in their joke, they are unaware of his presence. The verse dialogue opens with the wife speaking:

To one alone I cannot constant be
Because the Life I love is to be free
Few can the tedious Nuptial state support
And I to make it easy, make it short.//
The amorous Spark applauds her high-bred Notions
Yet never dreams of him who sees their Motions,
For tired of Play the Youth ascends the Couch
And two young Horns produces of a Touch.

A similar title and image is The Finishing of an Alderman's Picture, a line engraving at the Huntington Library and the Lewis Walpole Library by Matthew Darly, published January 1, 1773; the Darly portrays wife and lover, as above, without the intruding husband. See also The Head of______an Alderman finished by Cupid (1775).

32.3 x 24.9 cm.
Harry Elkins Widener Collection, Harvard College Library(colour, HEW13.8.3), Lewis Walpole Library (colour, 721.8.1.2)

A FRENCH CAPT. of DRAGOONS brought to bed of TWINS, or the cause of the CHEVALIER’S disappearance explain’d, addressed to the Under Writers of HE, and SHE policies.

Publish’d as the Act directs, by S. Hooper, No. 25, Ludgate-hill, 1 Septr 1771.

The Chevalier in bedclothes rests after childbirth attended by a man who leans over the bed with a cup of gruel. Two figures (r.) look on, one a man in armor with helmet, shield, and sword, and the other a woman with a book under her arm and holding staff with a liberty cap. The book is inscribed "The History of England by Mrs. Macaulay."In the background (r.) hangs an officer’s uniform. To the left a priest stands before a midwife who nestles the twins in her arms. He looks to the heavens as he reads from the scripture. A bowl, perhaps a baptismal, sits on a table behind him.

As Gary Kates writes in Monsieur d’Eon Is a Woman: A Tale of Political Intrigue and Sexual Masquerade, John Hopkins University Press, 2001, a rumor had surfaced in late 1770 that the Chevalier d’Eon, French soldier, diplomat, and spy, was in fact a woman. This had spurred a frenzy of wagering in London over the Chevalier’s sex that eventually, according to Kates (186), prompted d’Eon, out of fear for his safety, to disappear for six weeks. This, in turn, generated more rumors, among them that the Chevalier had given birth to a child fathered by John Wilkes. The man offering the Chevalier a cup of gruel appears to be Wilkes. The woman (r.) posed like Britannia holding the staff with liberty cap is Catherine Macaulay, noted for her History of England, the book she carries here. Kates writes that d’Eon, Wilkes, and Macaulay were linked as radicals and that at least one London newspaper spread the rumor "in March 1771 that bets were now being placed on Macaulay’s sex"(196).

Reproduced: Kates (2001), p. 228.

23 x 35.2 cm.
Huntington Library (283000 33#34)