Undated mezzotints Q to T

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

REMEMBER DEATH

246
Printed for & Sold by Bowles & Carver No. 69 St Paul's Church Yard London

A skull missing its jaw and most teeth sits on a Bible. Beside it stands a candlestick with a short candle, burning low.

13.9 x 11.2 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (793.0.62)

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

SATURDAY NIGHT AT SEA

Sailors entertain women on the gundeck. A smiling sailor sits on a trunk and watches a crewmate, seated on the guncarraige, raise a glass in toast to the young woman who sits next to him, his arm around her shoulder. Behind them a sailor hoists a keg to his lips as another sailor and an older woman look on. Through the gun port another ship can be seen riding at anchor.

29.2 x 25.2 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (794.0.6)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, New York Public Library

A Scene near Cox Heath, or the Enraged Farmer

A farmer in a long shift armed with a pitchfork drives off a dapper army officer who defends himself with his sword. The farmer's pretty young wife stands behind him (l.). With a shy smile, she clasps her shawl to her breast. This gesture and her hat lieing on ground near the farmer's feet suggests she has suffered an assault. The officer's left foot behind him is submerged past the ankle in a farm pond or puddle, indicating that despite his duelling stance, he is being backed down by the farmer. A small dog beside the farmer growls fiercely at the officer. A crude wooden fence, a large tree, and bushes form the near backgound to the left. In the far distance to the right the tent rows of a military encampment receed across the hills. The Huntington Library has a small engraving, published by Robert Sayer in 1770, that attributes this image to John Collett.

32 x 25 cm.
New York Public Library (MEZYRK Anon und.35), Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

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

The Seamstress

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

A maid looks up from her sewing, holding her needle and thread as if she has just finished a stitch. Before her on a small round table rests a basket with more mending.

32 x 24.5 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (765.0.89)

Courtesy of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

The Sleeping Beauty

Colson Pinxt. Jas Wilson fecit.

London, Printed for Robt Sayer, Map & Printseller, No. 53 Fleet Street

A lovely young lady sleeps in a large, stuffed chair or sofa. Beside her sits a small bird that is out of its cage. A cat climbs over the back of the chair, stalking the bird. The room is decorated with a large painting and heavy draperies. A pot and cup sit on a table below the painting.

33 x 25 cm.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (colour, 1971-479)
13.4 x 11.3 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (titled, Pretty Miss Asleep,and inscribed to Robert Sayer, "3 Octr 1771," 771.10.3.4)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, New York Public Library

[Sleepy Eye]

Richd Wilson pinxt. Wilson Fecit.

A lovely young girl seated at a table with books looks up sleepily. A shawl or veil over her cap has fallen away to expose her face. The clock on the wall behind her reads 4:45, probably in the morning. Chaloner Smith identifies the title, taken from Pope's Horatian Epistles inscribed here, "The Sleepy Eye that Spoke the Melting Soul" (Epistle II, i, 150), in lines that allude to the licentiousness of the Restoration period.

The image is from the British painter Richard Wilson (1713-1782).

31.1 x 25.2 cm.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation(colour, 1971-479), New York Public Library (MEZYRK)

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

The Smoaker

Ostade pinxt R. Houston fecit

161
Printed for Bowles & Carver, No. 69 St Pauls Church Yard, London

A man with long hair, mustache, and flat cap, removes his clay pipe and lets smoke drift up from his mouth. The Bowles & Carver print is a reissue of an earlier impression printed for Carington Bowles.

13 x 11.2 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (764.0.78)

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

SNUFF AND TWOPENNY

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

A poorly dressed aging woman, her head wrapped in a kerchief under a small cap, leans on a table and holds close a beer cannister with her left hand while she looks intently at a pinch of snuff she raises to her nose.

13.2 x 11 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (793.0.19)

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

The SPENDTHRIFT

Robt. Pile Pinxt

316
London Printed for Robt. Sayer Map & Printseller at the Golden Buck in Fleet Street

A man sits a table with clasped hands looking dejected behind a table cluttered with an empty purse, playing cards, an overturned wine glass, and a burnt out candle. The clock on the wall shows a quarter to Five. The verse reads:

Near Five o'Clock--his Comrades gone
And luckless Squander left alone.
He now begins to meditate,
And curse his Folly and his Fate,
By Sharpers gull'd and Gamblers trick's
How easily Squander thou are nick'd.//
Ye Dupes of Chance! ye Fools to Play
Who lavish Health and Wealth away,
In Squander's Fate perceive your own
And let the Dice and Cards alone
Lest like him o'er an empty Purse
You grieve__while things grow Worse & Worse.

The image is after the British painter Robert Pyle, active during the 1760s.

Lewis Walpole Library (colour, 765.0.7), Colonial Williamsburg(colour, 1967-338; inscribed "Richard Houston fecit, Robert Pyle pinxt" and "Printed for Bowles & Carver No. 69 St Pauls Church Yard, London,"and four lines of verse "Deaf to his aged Sire's advice,/ And biggotted to Cards and Dice;/ With many a horrid Oath and Curse,/ He loudly wails his empty Purse.")

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Library of Congress

The striking LIKENESS or HARLEQUIN turn'd PAINTER

The seated harlequin (l.), his diamond patterned shirt and pants partially covered by a painter's shift, reaches across to touch up the portrait of his pretty young sitter who poses to the right of the canvas. He is surrounded by large pots of paint, one that spills out at his feet, and appears a demonic figure with his dark face and pointed beard. The portrait is itself mischief since he is painting the girl as a jowly old woman with a heavy body drapped loosely in folds of cloth. [After Giovanni Domenio Ferrett da Imola]

32.4 x 25 cm.
Library of Congress (PC2+n.d.), Yale Center for British Art (B1970.3.739)

The Studious Fair

Miss Benwell pinxt. C. Spooner fecit

London. Printed for Heny. Parker opposite Birchin Lane in Cornhill, & Robt. Sayer near Serjeants Inn, Fleet Street

Of the numerous images of girls and women reading published during this period, this print is striking for the elegance of the fair young reader. She sits, facing left nearly in profile, her right hand to her cheek, the other holding the book that she reads intently. She is stylishly dressed with expansive lace sleeves, a ruffled ribbon necklace or choker, and an elaborate headband that gathers her hair. She wears a cameo or medallion on the wrist holding the book and bracelets on the other.

30.7 x 23.9 cm.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (1971-477), Huntington Library (untitled and uninscribed, 283000 Vol. 36 #69)
13.5 x 11 cm.
Huntington Library (titled and inscribed to Carington Bowles, no date, 283000 Vol. 36 #60; a three strand pearl choker replaces the ruffled ribbon)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Library of Congress

The STUDIOUS YAWNER

A young man in a cap and plain black robe looks up from a volume titled "Sleepy Sermons" and yawns so hard he squints, raising his left hand to his forehead. A candle on a tall stand that rises from the round table burns in the upper left corner. The figure is the same as He! Ho!--Heavy, Dull and Insipid by all that's good(BMC 4514), though the yawner there seems more frivolous with his richly patterned robe and tasselled hat and lacks the illuminating candle. The subtext here reads:

Ye Wakeful read what drowsy Men compose,
And feel the Yawning Charms of Sleepy Prose,//
With Lazy Joys they will the Mind unbend
And every Fiber of the Frame extend.

This impression was published by Robert Sayer.

34.7 x 25.1 cm.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Library of Congress (PC2+n.d.), Lewis Walpole Library (769.0.10)

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

Tis the Juniper Berry, that makes the Heart merry

96
Printed for Carington Bowles, No. 69 in St. Pauls Church Yard, London.

A portrayal of four persons drinking gin. In the background, a man lunges to kiss a woman who may be either returning his kiss or pushing his arm away. The two figures forward glance out at the viewer, the one turning his head to look out with glazed eyes. The second, a boy holding a clay pipe in the right hand he props on a table, looks up blearily as he vomits. The table contains a small gin cannister, a toppled glass, and another clay pipe.

14.1 x 11.2 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (770.0.71)

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

THE TOILET

Printed for Robt Sayer, Printseller in Fleet Street

A young woman in a gown and lace sleeves, wearing a long pearl strand around her neck, gazes into the mirror as she holds a flower to her hair.

13.8 x 11.1 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (760.0.40)

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

Twenty Thousand I've Got--How Lucky's my Lot

326

A sailor in a warrant officer's uniform leers out and grins as he holds a bag of prize money, labelled £20,000.

13.4 x 11 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (title and print number only, 785.0.33)