The R-l libertine reclaimed, or, The anticipation of a reconciliation [graphic] / Marks fect.

[London] : Pubd. by J.L. Marks, 37 Prince's St., Soho, [approximately February 1821]

1 print : etching with stipple ; plate mark 25 x 35 cm, on sheet 25.3 x 35.7 cm

Sold by London's Dulau and Company to the New York City bookseller Ernest R. Gee in 1928. Earlier ownership by W.E. Gladstone is suggested by a manuscript note from Dulau formerly laid into the front the first volume (now in the object file), which states that "These came from the Gladstone Library at Court Hey, Broad Green. The manuscript notes written below the caricatures are in the handwriting of W.E. Gladstone."

"George IV sits on the throne with Caroline beside him; his arm is round her shoulders and he turns to her to say: "(He that findeth a wife findeth good.) My dear Q***n, If constancy & love can make any amends for my past follies, I still may hope of a Reconciliation, do not go abroad again, to stay at home, is a great sign of the loyalty of marriage. ''Beneath the glitt'ring weight of crowns he'd groan", "Unless the genial bed relieve the throne." You may depend on it, I have turn'd up all those wanton Devils, I am sick of fat, I think no better of them than M. Raggou's Mistress who was whore to the whole troop. "A worthy Woman, saith Solomon is a Crown to her Husband!" He is caricatured, wearing royal robes and ruff. The Queen, who wears a small crown and royal robes, is handsome, affectionate, and unrecognizable. Her foot is on the royal footstool, and the crown is beside her. Leaning against the dais is an open book: 'Proverbs. She will do him good not evil all the days of her Life.' In the foreground (right) lies a portfolio of 'Bought up Caricatures'. On a projecting print is 'Marks fect', which serves as signature. The King's left arm is extended towards a crowd of angry and weeping women who are in a landscape which serves as background. Five in the forefront wear coronets. These say: "Oh! the wicked deceiver he shall know that women are either Angels or Devils"; "Oh! the Jerry Sneak" [from Foote's 'Mayor of Garratt']; "Let me come past, let me come past I'm going to drown'd myself"; "I shall hang myself"; "I wont go home to the Old Stick of my husband he can do nothing for me"; "Who would have thougt [sic] it after I experienced so much of his favour." One of the undifferentiated crowd says: "I shall go to the Magdalen" [asylum]. In the background are tiny figures: on the left a woman hangs from the branch of a rotten tree, above water in which one woman is almost submerged; another is about to plunge in, while a third runs towards it. On a hill on the right six lean and antlered men wearing court-suits dance holding hands; one says: "Dance away my Bucks, we shall have all our Ribs returned.""--British Museum online catalogue.

English

July 30, 2007

Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum, v. 10, no. 14128