Undated mezzotints I to L

© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

I'VE GOT DE MONISH

374
Printed for & Sold by Bowles & Carver No. 69 in St. Paul's Church Yard, London.

Within an oval shadow, a man with a sly grin is portrayed in profile looking out from the corner of his eye. He is hook-nosed with a prominent chin and wears the sharp clipped beard from caricatures of Jews in other cartoons. The original is a watercolour by Robert Dighton.

13 x 11 cm.
Metropolitan Museum (24.63.166)

The JOLLY DUTCHMAN

Ad. v. Ostade pinxt J. Wilson fec.

Printed for Robt Sayer, No. 53 in Fleet Street

A heavy older man in a heavy cloak and a helmet-shaped felt hat looks out over his shoulder while he raises a tankard.

14.3 x 12.3 cm.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (1952-157)

The JOVIAL BOOR

Ad. V. Ostade pinxt J. Greenwood fecit

Printed for Robt Sayer, No. 53 in Fleet Street

A man in cloak and flat cap looks up and raises his goblet with his right hand. His left arm rests across the table in front of him, his hand clasping a clay pipe.

14.6 x 12.5 cm.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (1952-156)

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

THE JOVIAL TOPER

Printed for Carington Bowles in St. Pauls Church Yard London

This print along with other Bowles miniatures, like Tis the Juniper Berry, has the character of a snapshot, as if the leering toper or drunkard had been caught just lowering from his lips the large cannister he clasps with both hands. The cannister is bulbous like a flower vase rather than the more common cylindar. The drinker, a fairly young man, looks like a laborer or craftsman in his loose shirt and crudely pressed felt hat.

13.5 x 11.4 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (770.0.70)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Library of Congress

JUDGE POPHAM, OR THE OLD RAM, LAMB FASHION

A small caricature in oval shows a long nosed smiling man in semi-profile looking at the viewer from the corners of his eyes. He wears a tall wig with ringlets and side curls that supports the association with sheep. The title is inscribed rather crudely around the oval.

10. 2 x 8.5 cm.
Library of Congress (PC2+n.d)

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

KITTY FLEECING THE OLD JEW

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

The pretty young girl appears all innocence as she looks left while extending her hand to receive a pearl pendant from the gentleman (r.) in profile. A more mature woman looks on from behind, and a servant boy (l.) in turban plunges his hand into a purse, perhaps adding to her booty or, or if he is the old man's servant, seeking more jewels for him to offer.

24.2 x 33 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (764.0.3)

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

THE Knowing One Taken In

I.C. inv et fec

A cannister of beer, pipe, and coins lie on the bar behind which a gentleman in profile leans to kiss a pretty maid, plainly dressed in a flat cap and low cut dress. He reaches for her waist while she places her right hand on his arm and the other on his shoulder. The verse warns the consequence may be venereal disease:

What signifies the Food a Dot
So it allays the Appetite
And doubtless ruddy Oysterinda
May please so much as soft Melinda//
Right says the Blade, they both are equal
And, so they are, but Mark the Sequel
For he thus pursues Desire
She gets the Coals and he the Fire

32.4 x 24.2 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (colour, 760.0.7)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Library of Congress

LA DIME. The TYTHE PIG

Though a mezzotint variation on a coloured engraving, The Tythe Pig (BMC 3794), elements of both image and the verse differ from the British Museum print. The foreground is a farmyard in which a robed vicar with clasped hands scowls as he turns away from a woman who holds out to him her swaddled infant. Behind her the farmer leans on his walking stick while he holds a suckling pig. In the foreground lie two baskets with fruit and potatoes and a sheaf of wheat, likely the desired tythe offering. Behind the three figures runs a fence with stile upon which roosts a peacock. The background left is a barn with haybundles and further back the manor house with a lady in the doorway. In the far distance stands a church. The verse below tells the tale of the dispute over the "dime' or tenth part.

In Country Village lives a Vicar,
Fond as all are of Tythes and Liquor.
For Mirth his Ears are seldom Shut,
He'll Crack a jest, & laugh at Smut.
But when his Tythes he gathers in,
True Parson then--no Corn, no Grin:
On Corn, on Hay, on Bird, on Beast,
Alike lays hold the Churlish Priest.
Hob's Wife and Sow as Gossips tell,
Both at a time in Pieces fell;
The Vicar comes, the Pig he Claims,
And the good Wife with Taunts inflames,
But she quite arch bow'd low & Smil'd,
Kept back the Pig and held the Child
The Priest look's warm, the Wife look'd big,
Zounds Sir! quoth She, no Child, no Pig.

35.4 x 25.1 cm.
Library of Congress (PC2+n.d.), Lewis Walpole Library (760.0.5)

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

A Lady at Confession

M. Lauren pinxt J. Smith fecit

Sold by E. Cooper at 63 Pidgeons in Bedford Street, Cum Privilegio Regio

A beautiful young woman (r.) with a raised veil kneels beside a chair in which sits the priest (r.). She gestures with one hand to her bosom, with the other to her left. The priest with hands crossed gazes down at her intently.

23.2 x 18.3 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (780.0.134)

LAW

A. Ostrade pinxt. R. Houston fecit.

The lawyer sits in his library reading a document that he holds in his right hand. He wears a hat and a robe over his clothes. A curtain drawn on a bookcase (r.) reveals several large volumes on the lower shelf with the size diminishing on the upper shelves. A table (l.) holds papers, inkwell, and pen and bundles of papers are pinned in the wall. An impression at the British Museum, inscribed to Bowles & Carver, includes a verse that clarifies how this posture print of a genre painting could be read as a droll:

Deep read in all the Art of Chican'ry
With grave important Phyz the Lawyer see!
Is it for Justice he persues the Laws?
Or is not Gold the first Essential Cause?

31.1 x 24.8 cm.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (1969-106)

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

LOVE ALAMODE

The scene appears to be a public space like the Pantheon with pillars and arches. A beau is on his knee, using his cocked hat for a cushion, to a woman who turns angrily away from him as she scowls and brandishes her fan. The features of both are grotesque as are the extravagent hairdoes enhanced in her case by a tower of thorny roses and in his by a bundle of scallions. The scene appears a masquerade or festival with her carrying under her arm a broom of bound twigs.

32.5 x 25 cm.
Yale Center for British Art (B1970.3.818)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, New York Public Library+

LOVE AND WINE

London, Printed for Robt. Sayer Map & Printseller near Serjeants Inn Fleet Street

A young man lies back in the lap of a young woman on a couch. His jacket and shirt are open and her shift has fallen away to reveal one breast. She places his left hand in his while she reaches with her right hand with a wine glass behind his shoulder toward a decanter he holds high to the right. If he pours, he will be serving blind since he is intent on meeting her gaze. Before them on a small round table is a plate with a large apple draped with two bunches of grapes. Beside the plate his glass lies on its side. Below are inscribed eight lines of verse:

Fly swiftly ye minutes, till Comus receive
The names soft transports that beauty can give
The bowl's frolick joys let him teach her to prove,
And she in return yield the raptures of love //
Without love and wine, wit and beauty are vain,
All grandeur insipid and raptures a pain,
The most splendid palace growns dark as a grave;
Love and wine give ye gods or take back what ye gave.

The print is similar to Love and Wine (BMC 4524), printed by Carington Bowles. The Sayer mezzotint differs in some details, for instance, the plate of fruit and upset glass instead of sheet music in the Bowles' print. This may take off from the Bowles print but the lack of dates on either makes it unclear which print has precedent. The Bowles number would seem to date these images from 1772.

31.5 x 25 cm.
New York Public Library (MEZYRK BM4524A), Lewis Walpole Library (957.7.1.55)

A later version of the image in miniature was published by Robert Sayer, "June 12th 1787." The figures are reversed and the setting is more elaborate with a view through the window behind (l.) that shows a wood, birds flying, and clouds. The topled goblet and fruit on the table has been joined by a deck of cards, scattered to reveal aces of clubs and diamonds and the two of clubs. Two busts looks down from the wall behind. The dated impression is inscribed "Spooner Fecit," the undated, "C. Spooner fecit."
13.3 x 11.5 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (787.6.12.2)