| Method | Etching with original hand colouring |
| Artist | Thomas Rowlandson after George Moutard Woodward |
| Published | Pub.d Feb.ry 26th 1809 by Thos. Tegg No. 111 Cheapside. |
| Dimensions | Image 310 x 220 mm, Plate 350 x 245 mm, Sheet 408 x 280 mm |
| Notes |
A double satire on the same plate showing two imagined scenes surrounding the scandal involving the Duke of York and his former lover Mrs Clarke. In the top register, titled above 'All for Love or A Scene at Weymouth', the Duke, in his capacity as Commander in Chief of the British Army, sits in military uniform gazing out the window of his apartment. He holds a quill pen in his right hand, and gestures towards the window, exclaiming: 'To morrow I inspect my regiment_ and then for my Dearest_Dearest_Dearest_Love.' By the ink pot on the table and strewn across the floor are numerous half-penned love letters, and musings on the downfall that awaits his involvement with the mercurial Mary Anne Clarke, who had testified to the Duke's knowledge and involvement in her alleged selling of military commissions. Behind the Duke, a black servant, wearing a turban and motley, wrings his hands with worry and moans: 'Bless my Massa what be de matter with him_him in love I fear_Sambo once be in love with bad Woman but him repent.' Below, the second scene, entitled 'An Unexpected Meeting,' is a follow up to a caricature Rowlandson had produced the day before, showing the Duke of York as a wizard magically transforming Samuel Carter, Mary Anne Clarke's young servant, into an army Captain. In the sequel, an elderly military officer has chanced upon the newly minted Captain, and gazes through an eyeglass with an attitude of casual disdain for what he beholds. He grumbles in disbelief: 'Can I believe my eyes, why this is the little foot boy_who waited on us at the house of a Lady of a certain description.' The diminutive Captain, his cocked hat comedically large, stands affronted: 'I beg Sir you will not come for to go, to affront a gemmen_' Thomas Rowlandson (1756 - 1827) was an English watercolourist and caricaturist. Born in London, the son of a weaver, Rowlandson studied at the Soho Academy from 1765. On leaving school in 1772, he became a student at the Royal Academy and made the first of many trips to Paris where he may have studied under Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. In 1775 he exhibited the drawing Dalilah Payeth Sampson a Visit while in Prison at Gaza at the Royal Academy and two years later received a silver medal for a bas-relief figure. As a printmaker Rowlandson was largely employed by the art publisher Rudolph Ackermann, who in 1809, issued in his Poetical Magazine The Schoolmaster's Tour, a series of plates with illustrative verses by Dr. William Combe. Proving popular, the plates were engraved again in 1812 by Rowlandson himself, and issued under the title The Tour of Dr Syntax in Search of the Picturesque. By 1813 the series had attained a fifth edition, and was followed in 1820 by Dr Syntax in Search of Consolation, Third Tour of Dr Syntax in Search of a Wife in 1821 and also in the same year by The history of Johnny Quae Genus, the little foundling of the late Doctor Syntax. Rowlandson also illustrated work by Smollett, Goldsmith and Sterne, and for The Spirit of the Public Journals (1825), The English Spy (1825), and The Humorist (1831). George Moutard Woodward (1760 – 1809) was an English amateur caricaturist and humorous writer. Nicknamed 'Mustard George', Woodward had a somewhat crude but energetic style. Widely published in the Caricature magazine and elsewhere, his drawings were nearly all etched by others, primarily Thomas Rowlandson, but also Charles Williams and Isaac Cruikshank. He was described by Dorothy George as 'an very considerable figure in caricature: he was original, prolific and varied'. BM Satires 11226 Condition: Two tears to left sheet edge just coming in to image. Small tears to upper and right sheet edges. Creasing to sheet edges. Some toning and surface dirt to sheet. |
| Framing | unmounted |
| Price | £250.00 |
| Stock ID | 52991 |