Undated mezzotints M to P

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

MELTING MOMENTS

Printed for Bowles & Carver, No. 69 in St. Pauls Church Yard, London.

A fat, bald man with bulbous cheeks and thick lips shows his distress at the heat as he wipes his brow with a handkerchief. Several beads of perspiration drip from his fringe of hair. The caricature is engraved in an oval.

13.4 x 11.1 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (793.0.17)

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

The Merry Cottagers

London. Printed for R. Sayer, No. 53 Fleet Street

The central figures are a young farmer and girl dancing in the courtyard in front of an inn or alehouse. A piper sits on a barrel or stool outside the building with a jug at his feet. To his right, a barmaid looks out of a long, narrow window with diamond pattern glasswork, perhaps a raised panel, in the top-third. Behind the dancers (l.), an older man and woman stand together under a covered porch. To their right, a tall, rustic looking man is talking to four persons sitting at a table in the shadows.

13.6 x 11.3 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (793.0.17)

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

THE MUSICAL HOLLANDER

Printed for Bowles & Carver, St. Pauls Church Yard, London.

An aging peasant woman in a simple white hood, seated at a table, sings from a score she holds in her hand, as an old man in a cap leans on the back of her chair, listening intently. Two volumes of music lie before her on the table, one marked "Baso." Beside to the far left stands a pitcher.

13.8 x 11.4 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (793.0.60)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, New York Public Library

Native Meltons

Mercier pinxt Robt Houston fecit

This image of a young maid shucking oysters and looking boldly up at the viewer appears in several versions, some more explicitly licentious than others. See Postle, p. 77-78. For instance, the impression issued as The Fair Oysterinda (Postle, p. 18) includes the suggestive verse:

The Oysters good!__The Nymph so fair
Who would not wish to taste her Ware?
No need has she aloud to Cry 'em,
Since all who sees her Face must buy 'em.

The verse that accompanies the New York Public Library impression notes the maid's charms but turns them to a satiric thrust at the more artful ladies of the town:

Well, pretty Maid, and how d'ye sell 'em?
Sir, Three a Penny, if You tell 'em;
They're most delicious Oysters.
By Jove a Girl so Sweet as Thee,
In London streets one ne'er shall see,
Nor yet at Smithfield Cloisters.//
Ladies who dress and patch and paint
Your Charms, to genuine Charms are faint.
Where rosy Youth persuades,
Polly shall win a thousand Hearts
While Half of You, for all your Arts
Must live and die old Maids.

Reproduced: Postle, p. 41.

29.9 x 22.3 cm.
New York Public Library (Satyr p.177)

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

O Rare Show

I. Kirk pinxt I.Smith excudit

A hawker or showman (l.) stands behind a box or raree show whose wings he has opened to a reveal a number of scenes, three in each panel. To the immediate right of the show, a boy who may be the showman's assistant points out scenes to four little girls of varying ages who cluster about him. This print may date to mid-century or earlier, but it anticipates The Raree Show from 1794 and S.W. Fores' The Show-Man.

29.3 x 22.4 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (700.0.28)

Courtesy of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

The OWL FACE

I.Molin Pinxt.

264
London. Printed for Robt Sayer No 53 in Fleet Street.

A man in costume (l.) is shown with a young woman who stands between him and the owl that he holds on a perch with his left hand. She grasps his shoulder while he grins and points up at the owl. Either his makeup or the light amplify circles around his eyes that mirror the rounded eye markings of the owl. The verse reads:

In dull Solemnity there winks the Owl
With Hideous Laugh here shakes the Grinning Fool.//
Laughing he beholds the grave & Solemn Phez
Nor thinks his own Resemblance there he Sees.

This is probably from the early1760s and is Sayer's impression of an image and verse also published by "John Bowles & Son."

32.3 x 25.2 cm
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (1968-457)

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

Philosopher Laughing at Magick

Painted by Teniers after the manner of Rembrandt.

222
Printed for Carington Bowles, Map & Printseller, at No. 69 in St. Pauls Church Yard, London.

Sitting at a table with a skull and mortar and pestle, a bearded philosopher grins as he reads, intent on his book. In front of his desk is a stool on which stands a vial or decanter of clear liquid and a square cannister streaked with a darker fluid, both stoppered with crumpled paper. Two volumes of notes, and two books, one open, lean against the stool. While he laughs at magic, he seems oblivious to images that surround him that draw on the arcane. These include a figure in cowl and dark robe who kneels in the foreground holding a large candle. In the smoke from the candle fly strange bird and bat-like creatures. Behind the philosopher are two other figures of humans transformed to animals.

32.8 x 23 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (colour, 771.0.42)

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

PHYSICK

A. Ostrade Pinxt. R. Houston fecit.

A richly dressed, bearded physician or scientist sits in a library and examines fluid in a glass beaker that he tilts in his hand. A bookcase (l.) holds a number of large volumes and a book lies open (r.) on a table with an elaborately patterned cloth. In the background, an opening leads to another large room with a window with small leaded glass panes.The verse that clarifies how a genre image like Physick could be read as a droll:

To Med'cine's aid the Wretch in Sickness flees,
And hopes from Man what Providence denies;//
Meanwhile the Doctor tries his utmost Skill,
To cure his Patient--but if not--to Kill.

31.3 x 24.8 cm
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (1969-107), Lewis Walpole Library (with verse, 760.0.91)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, New York Public Library

THE Painter/ an Ass/ A TALE

Lancret Pinxt. Moore Fecit.

338
Printed for Robt. Sayer in Fleet Street

The young wife in a night shift spreads her legs for the man with paintbrush kneeling before her. The studio has stretched canvasses leaning against the wall below a window, a landscape in the background, and a painting of one ass mounting another on the easel. To the right can be seen a curtained bed or couch. The scene may show the husband painting the ass but the cocked hat on the bedclothes, the alarm of the small dog under the chair, and the painter's youth indicates that he is the lover restoring and improving the original. The verse tells the joke:

A Painter thus thinking his wife to Secure,
Paints an Ass, you know where, but being fond of Amour,
Her husband's being Gone, clasps a Youthful Lover,
And no Ass Could be seen when the business was over.//
The Spark who no knowledge in Painting did lack,
With Pencil restores it but saddles its back,
The Husband returns, and struck with surprise,
Who the Devil has put on the saddle he Cries.

The image is after the French painter, Nicholas Lancret (1690-1743).

23.9 x 35.3 cm.
New York Public Library (Satyr p.89)

© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

PLENTY

228
Printed for Bowles & Carver, Map and Printseller, No. 69 in St. Pauls Church Yard, London

A lovely young girl in straw hat and apron stands holding a sheaf of wheat, surrounded by images of rich harvest. She leans one elbow on a pedestal that holds a large urn upon which a parrot perches. A apple tree laden with yellow fruit stands behind her and to her left a farmer scythes while a woman bundles wheat. Further in the back ground a flock of sheep grazes.

33 x 25 cm.
Metropolitan Museum (67.539.84)

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

THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT

A pretty young girl raises her hand as if to restrain the advances of a clergyman, while she glances down toward her lap where he presses a bag of gold into her hand. He is wearing a clergyman's hat with brim and collar and pince-nez spectacles. The verse tells the tale.

Struggling twixt Virtue and Desire,
Accosted by a rev'rend Sire,
Behold this pretty Maid.
How young the Lass, How old the Man,
What then to win by Gold's his Plan
And so She's not afraid://
To Beauty Av'rice lends its Key
And Law dispenses with its Fee,
If Beauty but consent.
The cease, ye lovers, to despair,
Since a Purse melts the stubborn Fair,
And gains the Argument.

31.5 x 25.1 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (780.0.150)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, New York Public Library

The Power of Beauty

I. Simon fecit N. Lancret pinxt

London. Printed for R. Marshall No. 4 Aldermary Church Yard

Two lovely young ladies appear before an astonished young man who grins with pleasure as he is restrained by the older man behind him. The two ladies are shaded by an umbrella held by the black servant boy who follows them.

The Youth who ne'er till now on Woman gaz'd,
At once surpriz'd & pleas'd stands all amaz'd!
Strange Pleasure fill his Breast, his Bloods on fire,//
And every Sense is rouz'd with strong Desire:
Such Charms are in the Sex in spite of Art,
When ere if Eye behold they touch the Heart.

The image is after the French painter, Nicholas Lancret (1690-1743).

23.8 x 35 cm.
New York Public Library (Satyr p.189)

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

THE PROPOSAL

Printed for & Sold by Carington Bowles No. 69 in St. Pauls Church Yard, London.

A young lady sits in a richly furnished sitting room or a salon of a manor, intently reading the letter that she holds in her right hand. The letter is a single sheet of paper covered on both sides. Through the window is a winter scene, men and boys iceskating and in the distance a row of cottages with snow-covered roofs. In contrast with the comfortable furnishings of the salon and the fine and plentiful clothing of the lady, the painting upper left behind her portrays a begger woman and child trying to warm themselves by a small cookfire with tripod.

32.9 x 25 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (784.0.35)