| Method | Etching with original hand colouring |
| Artist | Thomas Rowlandson |
| Published | Pub.d March 8th 1809 by Thos. Tegg 111 Cheapside. |
| Dimensions | Image 210 x 320 mm, Plate 249 x 347 mm, Sheet 260 x 358 mm |
| Notes |
A comedic foreshadowing of the events of the Parliamentary Debates for the 8th of March, 1809, using Addison's Cato as an analogue for popular discussion of a scandal involving the Duke of York and his mistress Mrs Clarke selling military commissions. The caricature apes the opening of Addison's popular play, with two old men standing in for the characters of Marcus and Portius, the two sons of the play's eponymous hero. Portius, here an old cit in coat, breeches, necktie, and hat in a mock theatrical stance, grumbles the opening lines to his Marcus, an eye-rolling cobbler who stands by his stall on the corner of the 'Hope' Insurance Office: 'The Dawn is overcast—the morning lowers / And heavily in Clouds—brings on the day—big / with the Fate of Y------ and Mrs Clarke'. The Cato, well-known to Rowlandson's early eighteenth century audience, was a fitting choice of subject for the matter at hand, with the play's central themes involving government tyranny, corruption, republicanism, and personal liberty and responsibility. The 8th of March marked the date set for discussion in the Commons of the Report on the Inquiry into the Duke of York's involvement in the scandal, following testimony from Mrs Clarke and others earlier in the year. As it transpired, the Parliamentary Debate became the setting for Gwyllym Wardle's request for an Address to the King to ask for the Duke of York's removal from his position as Commander in Chief of the Army. Frederick resigned only a fortnight later. 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). Thomas Tegg (1776-1845) was a British bookseller, printseller, and publisher, trading most notably from a printworks and shop in Cheapside. His best remembered series are Tegg's Carricatures, the Caricature Magazine, the London Encyclopaedia, and the immensely popular Whole Life of Nelson. BM Satires 11245 Condition: Some toning and surface dirt to sheet. Light creasing to sheet. |
| Framing | unmounted |
| Price | £250.00 |
| Stock ID | 52989 |