A scene in the new farce [graphic] : as performed at the Royalty Theatre! / G. Cruikshank invt. et sculp.

[London] : Pubd. by G. Humphrey, Feby. 14, 1821, 27 St. James's Street, [14 February 1821]

1 print : etching ; plate mark 24.8 x 35.1 cm, on sheet 25.6 x 35.8 cm

wove paper

"George IV, dressed as Henry VIII and with cavalry boots decorated with rosettes, sits on the throne (right), shrinking angrily from oxen wearing civic gowns who bow, presenting petitions. All the horns of the oxen are tipped with tiny caps resembling caps of Liberty; a slightly larger pair protects the prongs of a fork held up on the extreme left above the massed heads of the beasts. On this a placard is speared: 'Petitions from every Part of the World--(Hole's and Corner's excepted) to Dismiss the Ministers-- signed by upwards of 999,999--Millions of the Brute Creation.' The petitions of the four beasts in the front row are headed: 'Petition of Lord Mayor & Citizens of London to Dismiss Ministers'; 'Petitions from every part of England & Wales to Dismiss Ministers &c &c &c'; '. . . ions from every Part of Scotland to Dismiss Ministers &c &c &c'; 'Petitions from every part of Ireland . . . [ut supra]'. Hooves rise from cattle behind holding more petitions: 'from Europe'; 'From Asia'; 'from Africa'; 'from America'; 'from every Honest Man'. The canopied throne is raised on a dais of three steps, the footstool is a cushion supported on a (carved) elephant; but the King's feet are drawn back. His right hand is on his hip; he holds an oddly shaped sceptre in the left hand. The back of the throne is framed by carved mannikins with shackled hands and feet; a large crown rests on the heads of the two uppermost. The back of the canopy has a pattern of writhing serpents. Ministers, much caricatured, stand on the right and left of the dais. In the foreground (right) and on the King's left, Wellington, with the apron and steel of a butcher (as in British Museum Satires No. 13288), with gauntlet gloves and with a star on his tunic, holds a blood-stained battle-axe. Sidmouth, as Court-fool, sits in profile to the left on an apothecary's mortar, wearing a double-peaked fool's cap and a star, and holding a bladder which is his clyster-pipe. Behind is Eldon, scowling savagely and holding the mace and the Purse of the Great Seal. A bishop holding a crosier stands on either side of the throne, behind the Ministers. A staff supports an emblematical cask which a naked Bacchus bestrides. On the King's right is Liverpool, holding a tall staff to which a green bag is tied (see British Museum Satires No. 13735). Next him is Castlereagh, blandly sinister, holding a scourge, and with a bunch of keys hanging from his belt; he stares at the petitioners. A tiny Vansittart is beside him, in his Chancellor of the Exchequer's gown, with an 'X' on his breast above a chequered pattern, hung diamond-wise. Immensely fat and absurd beefeaters stand along the back of the room under quasi-Gothic windows of stained glass. All hold tridents and turn their eyes towards the petitioners, grinning grotesquely. Each window is centred by an escutcheon on which a decanter is the chief object. The upper part of each is filled by a design of three large peacock's feathers (see British Museum Satires No. 13299). The Gothic roof, caricaturing that at Carlton House (cf. British Museum Satires No. 11727), is filled with tracery in the form of antlers."--British Museum online catalogue.

English

December 06, 2018

Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum, v. 10, no. 14118