The men of paper going to pot, or, The directors in a stew [graphic].

[London] : Pub. June 22, 1819, by T. Tegg, 111 Cheapside, [22 June 1819]

1 print : etching ; plate mark 24.5 x 35 cm, on sheet 25.6 x 41.8 cm

wove paper

Bound in the set of five volumes, formerly owned by Henry Arthur Johnstone. Binding: red morocco with his initials stamped in gold on the front cover in a shield with crossed swords and three floral stamps above and one below; also four floral stamps on spine with volume number and spine title in gold: The caricature magazine. Leather endpapers with his ex libris blind stamped on front flyleaf -- a boat with large sail, with a cutout in the shape of the sun in upper left.

"A huge pot rests directly on a fierce fire from blazing bank-notes. The scene is outside the Bank of England, the façade being on the extreme right. From it porters are carrying huge stacks of 'Notes' to add to the flames. The pot is inscribed 'Bank Pot' [twice], and 'Cash Payments at the Bottom of this Pot', where it is badly cracked owing to the fire. The pot is filled with Bank Directors, whose heads and arms emerge. They shriek: "I am in a Stew"; "I am sure the Pots Crackd," and "Take care it don't Break." A fashionably dressed man ascends a ladder leaning against the pot (right); he shouts to those inside "have you found the Gold." The fire is being stirred up by (?) Peel; Vansittart, in his Chancellor of the Exchequer's gown, uses a mace to push the man up the ladder. Huge clouds of smoke ascend from the fire covering much of the design; they are inscribed 'Smoke' and 'Cash Payments Smoke'. Two spectators stand on the left, watching the hurly-burly. One, a 'cit', says: "There's a pretty Kettle of Fish." The other, a countryman in a smock, answers: "Lord bless you they ban't Fish they be all paper"."--British Museum online catalogue.

Directors in a stew

English

August 25, 2016

Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum, v. 9, no. 13245