1767-1770

January

Printed for Robt Sayer, No 53 Fleet Street. Published according to Act of Parliament Jany 1767

This is first of a series of prints emblemizing the months of the year. The collection at the Yale Center for British Art is distinctive among North American collections for being complete. The series is also notable for the extent to which the engraver has individualized the young woman rather than the usual generic beauty.

For January, she is bundled up in hat, a cloak with fur trim, and muff. Behind her figures can be seen ice skating. Her small dog watches the skaters from a niche in the stone wall behind her. Other impressions of the series that survive in British collections are inscribed "Robt. Sayer at No. 53 in Fleet Street, and Carington Bowles at St. Pauls Church Yard," "Publish'd according to the Act of Parliament, Jany. 2, 1767." This New Year's edition suggests the market that anticipates the later popularity of calendars.

February

She stands by a tall urn on a pedestal dressed in a lighter cloak but with her hands still tucked in the muff. The wintry landscape behind has bare trees and two figures, one raking or shoveling snow and the other holding what seems to be a fish pole.

March

The scene is a windy March day. Her gown, hood, and fur trimmed cape are wind-blown and she warms her hands in a patterned muff. Behind her a sailboat whips past and a windmill stands in the distance.

April

She points to a primrose in a pot on the shelf in a stone wall. She wears a flat spring hat and light cloak. Behind her can be seen two gardeners, one spading and the other planting, in the garden alley that runs between two rows of trees up to a Georgian country house.

May

She sits with a basket of flowers, holding a garland she has woven in her right hand and the strand of another in her left hand. In the background in front of a farmhouse, two women and a man dance around a maypole.

June

The young woman stands holding a summer flower. Behind her (l.) a woman is seen raking hay, while two men, one on a ladder and another on top, build a haystack.

July

She teases her spaniel by holding a bird by its feet above the dog's head. Behind her a hunter kneels to shoot as ahead of him his dog points at game.

August

She stands with a fishing pole over her shoulder. A basket of minnows sits on the stream back beside her and another fish hangs from the line that dangles from her hand. It is difficult to tell whether these minnows are catch or bait. Behind her a gentleman sits on the shore beside the pond.

September

She sits her knees turned left, holding a long stem of hollyhock in her right hand and in the other displaying a cluster of grapes from the fruit basket beside her.

October

For October, she is dressed for hunting. She holds up a whip to point out a rabbit that seems to be suspended from a tree and holds out her hand for a hound to sniff, giving it the scent. In the background a gentleman on horseback leads the lady's mount.

November

Autumn is wanning and trees in the background are already bare. November renews bird shooting and she holds a snipe by its feet to entice her small spaniel. In the distance her companion kneels to fire at other birds that have been started from cover.

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Yale Center for British Art, Yale University

December

She is bundled up for winter and standing before the stone rail of a porch or balcony. Her gloves have the pattern of the cross, and she holds a branch of mistletoe, holly, or another evergreen that she taken from the bundle in her apron. Behind her on a pedestal is an urn containing a small holly bush with berries.

31.8 x 25.2 cm.
Yale Center for British Art (B1970.3.741-752)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, New York Public Library

Smack the Coachman Tipling within Doors/ while his Fare are fretting without

Riley del et fecit

Publish'd according to Act of Parliament Feby 1, 1768

A beefy coachman looks gazes out and raises his full tankard as if in toast or greeting. His whip is in his left hand and his pipe lies before him on the table.

13.5 x 11 cm.
New York Public Library (MEZYRK)

© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

YOUTH

I. Tassaert Inv et Fecit

Published by J. Boydell in Cheapside Feb 1st 1768

A young man playing a guitar stands behind a seated young woman who turns away from her lacework to gaze fondly into his eyes.

31.5 x 25 cm.
Metropolitan Museum (colour, 67.539.86)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Library of Congress

The DENTIST, or TEETH DRAWN with a TOUCH

Designed by J. Harris & Improved by drawings after the life by J. Dixon Dixon fecit

Printed for John Bowles, at No. 13 in Cornhill, London. Published According to Act of Parliament A.D. 1768

At his smithy, a grinning "dentist" grasps with his pincers the tooth of an older man who screws up his face in pain and seizes the farrier's arm. The farrier glances or leers back at a young woman who stands beside him to the left, her right hand on the anvil, her left on the farrier's shoulder, as she stares at or speaks to the patient. The verse reads:

Ye Worthies of the British Nation,
Attend to my new Operation!
Let Colt's Teeth or Decay'd Ones come,
My Pinchers quick shall ease your Gum.

The farrier or smith turned dentist is a familiar subject; the print was also published by John Bowles as The Ludicrous Operator, or Blacksmith turn'd Tooth Drawer, also dated 1768 with the verse:

Why Squeeze your Hat, and seize my Cap,
As if you dreaded some Mishap?//
Keep not your Spirits on the Rack,
I'm a Licentiate: not a Quack.

Sayer's print at the Library of Congress may copy it. Bowles & Carver's The Country Doctor, or Farrier turned Tooth Drawer, (BMC 8052), probably from the early 1790s, recycles the image but changes the verse.

32.6 x 25.2 cm.
Library of Congress ( Inscribed, "Printed for Robt Sayer at No 53 in Fleet Street London," no date, with the attribution to J. Dixon as drawer and engraver changed to J. Wilson, PC2+n.d.), Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (1951-411)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, New York Public Library

The HUSBAND'S FORTUNE TOLD

Printed for Carington Bowles, Map & Printseller, at Nol 69 in St Pauls Church Yard, London. Published as the Act directs AD [1768]

The aged husband is intent on the fortune teller (r.) reading his palm. In his other hand he holds a coin that the old lady is reaching for. The young wife stands by and gestures behind his head, holding up two fingers. The servant girl (l.) leans on the back of his chair, rubs her chin and looks amused. The verse tells the tale:

When gay Eighteen to Sixty weds,
How just the Scheme of Separate Beds, //
This Dotard needs no Gipsy's Prate,
His wife and Betty know his fate.

The date on this impression at the YCBA has been erased and the attribution to 1768 is hand-written. The authority for this dating is uncertain though it is plausible since both Carington Bowles and John Bowles occasionally included AD in their inscriptions from 1768 to 1770 but not thereafter.

23.9 x 35 .5 cm.
New York Public Library(untitled and uninscribed, Satyr p.63),Yale Center for British Art (B1970.3.814)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, New York Public Library

The WIFE'S FORTUNE TOLD

Printed for Carington Bowles, Map & Printseller, at No. 69 in St. Pauls Church Yard, London. Publish'd as the Act directs (erased)

In this companion piece to The Husband's Fortune Told, an elderly wife sits at a tea table and reaches across to drop a coin into the hand of the woman who is reading her fortune in a teacup. The spots on her face indicate that she is ill. The fortune teller is dressed shabbily with a crone's profile and short, pointed, black hat. She carries a small child on her back. While the wife is intent on hearing her fortune, her husband, a younger handsome gentleman, reaches left to stroke the cheek of the pretty maid who leans on the back of her mistress's chair. The verse illuminates the scene:

With Maid or Widow e'er so old,
A Youth of Spirit gets the Gold.//
Why then to know your Fate so silly?
You gave your Cash to keep a___Filly.

24 x 35 cm.
New York Public Library (MEZYRK), Yale Center for British Art (B1970.3.767)

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

The DROWSY DAME

Published as the Act directs AD 1769. Printed for Carington Bowles, Map & Printseller at No. 69 in St Pauls Church Yard, London.

A woman raises her arms, her left hand to her face as she yawns widely. This is possibly a companion to The Studious Yawner or its counterpart He!Ho!--Heavy, Dull, and Insipid by all that's good (BMC 4514). The image resembles (BMC 4515) Hi!Ho!--These Late Hours will soon Destroy Me. Four verse lines read:

What Raptures steal this ev'ry Nerve and Vein,
When the Mouth Yawns, and when the Muscles Strain.
Smile ye, Alert, and all ye Critics Grin,
Ye ne'er can prove that stretching is a Sin.

31.8 x 25.3 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (769.0.11)

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

THE FAIR NUN UNMASK'D

H. Morland pinxt.

Printed as the Act directs AD 1769. Printed for Carington Bowles, Map & Printseller, No. 69 in St Pauls Church Yard, London.

Within an oval, a beautiful young woman has just removed a mask. Her eyes and forehead remain shaded by a black veil that falls over her shoulders. She glances left. She wears pearls in her hair and a crumpled ribbon choker from which hangs a jewelled cross that rests on her bosom above a low neckline. A couplet from Pope's Rape of the Lock underscores the irony of guise and sensuality:

On her white Breast a sparkling Cross she wore,
That Jews might kiss and Infidels adore.

31.7 x 24.8 cm.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (1973-255)
33 x 24.3 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (769.0.1, also a reversed image, not in oval)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Library of Congress

THE ARREST, Drawn from a late real Scene

Dixon ad Vivum del. et fecit.

Published according to the Act in 1769 by John Bowles in No. 13 in Cornhill

On a London street, a young man in foppish dress grins as he peers through a spyglass directly out of the picture. From the right and slightly behind him, a bailiff with writ in hand reaches to seize the fop's arm. Behind the gentleman (l.) the street recedes, fronted by a large building on the far side. A pub sign hangs from a near building far left and a sedan chair rests in middle of the street nearby. The verse below reads:

Sir Fopling Flutter through his Glass
Inspects the Ladies as they pass//
Yet still the Coxcomb lacks the Wit
To Guard against the Bailiff's Writ.

32 x 24 cm.
New York Public Library(MEZYRK), Lewis Walpole Library (769.0.8.1, titled Sir Fopling Arrested, Drawn from a late real Scene)
15.2 x 11.4 x cm.
Library of Congress (PC3+1768)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Library of Congress

[The Newsmongers]

J.Donaldson delint. J. Finlayson fect.

Published May 1st 1769

The scene is a smithy. The tailor (r.) stands wide-eyed and open-mouthed, scissors and tape in his left hand, gesturing emphatically behind him out the open door. The smith (r.) leans on his sledge as he listens intently, his mouth agape. His bushy-haired assistant (c.) stands behind the anvil his arms spread in alarm, holding a hammer. The title comes from the inscription on an impression in the Christopher Lennox-Boyd collection: "The Newsmongers, I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus, The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool, With open mouth swallowing the taylor's news. King John Act 4th Scene 2d./Sold by Mr. Finlayson, in Berwick Street, Soho."

This is caricatured compared to Edward Penny's rendering of the scene at about the same time. The Penny painting can be seen reduced to posture size in I Saw a Smith (1781), below.

Reproduction in Lennox-Boyd et al.(1994), p. 39.

32.5 x 45 cm.
Library of Congress (untitled)

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

LADY'S MAID SOAPING LINNEN

Morland pinxt.

Publish'd as the Act directs 2nd Octr 1769. Printed for Carington Bowles, No. 69 in St. Pauls Church Yard. London

The pretty maid looks up from her task to gaze boldly, even flirtatiously, at the viewer. She wears a gown with a flower pattern and low cut chemise trimmed to cover her bosom. These impressions reproduce the popular series by Henry Morland of women servants performing household chores and bear the same publication date as a larger mezzotint by Philip Dawe. The inscription on the Yale Center for British Art impression identifies Dawe as the engraver for the posture sized impression. This figure of the maid soaping linen in a basin is included among the prints in Postle (1998), though the mezzotint reverses the image.

The next half dozen images are further examples of this convergence of fancy picture and mezzotint droll seen through these renderings of Morland paintings by Dawe published by Carington Bowles in 1769.

14.3 x 11.5 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library(769.10.2.1) , Metropolitan Museum
31.5 x 25 cm.
Yale Center for British Art (includes inscriptions"Hen Morland pinxt," "Carington Bowles excudit," "Phil Dawe fecit," B1977.14.12022)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Yale Center for British Art, Yale University

Domestic Employment Ironing

Henr Morland pinxt. P. Dawe fecit

The lovely young servant looks intent on her ironing as she presses a handkerchief or other small piece. A trivet for the iron sits on the ironing board as well as a pile of finished work. She wears a patterned gown, housecap with ribbon, and a low-cut shift. Like Lady's Maid Soaping Linnen, this also reverses the original Morland painting and reduces it to the smaller plate for the market in posture prints. Dawe changes Morland's more demure painting by removing the trim on the blouse to expose and accentuate the maid's bosom, a move that underscores the extent to which these images' appeal depends on their sensual promise.

Morland's painting is reproduced, Postle, p. 46.

31.5 x 25 cm.
Yale Center for British Art (B1977.14.12021)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Yale Center for British Art, Yale University

The Oyster Woman

Hen Morland Pinxt Carington Bowles excudit Phil Dawe fecit.

A pretty young oyster woman is intent shucking her oysters, a task lit by lamplight. Postle (1998), p. 78, notes that contrary to the reduction typical of these mezzotints, this image represents an enlargement from the painted original. In the case of the print here represented, the painting was originally increased in mezzotint to roughly a 20 x 14 inch image, then reduced to the 14 x 10 posture plate. He does note that this joins other prints made by Dawe after Morland's fancy pictures. A surviving impression includes the date "July 1st 1769."

33 x 24.8 cm.
Yale Center for British Art (B1977.14.12024)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Yale Center for British Art, Yale University

The pretty Ballad Singer

Hen Morland pinxt Phil Dawe fecit

Published as the Act directs AD 1769. Printed for Carington Bowles in St Pauls Church Yard, London.

Dawe reverses and crops Morland's painting of Girl Singing Ballads by a Lanthorn in this image of a girl performing ballads from a sheaf of texts lit by a wax-paper enclosed candle. The original painting is reproduced in Postle (1998),p. 44, and discussed p. 83.

Yale Center for British Art (B1970.3.857)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Yale Center for British Art, Yale University

The Pretty Maid with her Apron before the Candle

H. Morland pinxt P. Dawe fecit

Printed for Carington Bowles, Map & Printseller, No. 69 in St Pauls Church Yard, London

A young maid intently observes the effects of candlelight within a shade she forms with the fabric of her apron. Impressions survive that include the inscription, "Publish'd Oct. 1st 1770."

The impression reverses the painting, A Servant Girl with a Candle, reproduced in Postle, p.8, and attributed to Philip Mercier.

34 x 35 cm.
Yale Center for British Art (no date, B1977.14.12026)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Yale Center for British Art, Yale University

Reading by a Paper-bell Shade

Hen Morland pinxt Phil Dawe fecit

Printed for Carington Bowles, Map & Printseller, No. 69 in St Pauls Church Yard, London. Published as the Act directs (erased)

A young woman has read far into a volume in the light of a shaded candle. This joins a number of images from the period that illustrate the fascination with the figure of women reading. The ambivalence this print motif suggests is explored by Ellen D'Oench (1999), pp. 52-65.

34 x 25 cm.
Yale Center for British Art (B1970.3.856)

Courtesy of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

HIGH LIFE below STAIRS

London: Published as the Act directs, July 17th 1770 Printed for Carington Bowles, No. 69 in St. Pauls ChurchYard

This is one of several prints from the period with this title, though most are engravings. Here the scene is a kitchen before a large fireplace with household implements on the mantle. To the left of center a plump cook dances with a black footman, but the focal point of attention--both for the dancers and group of four figures right--appears to be an exchange between two gentlemen or footmen dressed up. The one standing has grabbed the upper arm or shoulder of a maid who is pushing him away. The other turns in his chair and points, looking rather amused. Completing this group of four is a stooped old lady (r.) who looks on with apparent delight. Seated between her and the man standing is a spotted dog or spaniel. A peg-legged fiddler (l.) on a chair plays for the dancers.

25.7 x 35.2 cm.
Huntington Library (BMX 1776 Pr.Box 211.3/8) , Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

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

The Beauty Unmask'd

Heny Morland pinxt. Carington Bowles excudit Phil Dawe fecit London.

Publish'd as the Act directs. AD 1770. Printed for Carington Bowles, No. 69 in St. Pauls Church Yard.

A lovely young girl costumed in pearl choker, low cut gown, and turban, holds her mask aside (r.) in her hand and gazes left. Her long braid drapes over her right shoulder

33.6 x 25.2 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (770.o.34), Metropolitan Museum (dated 1779)