1774

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Library of Congress

THE MUSICAL PAIR

Pub'd Feby 28, 1774 by Francis Edward Adams

A woman (l.) plays a harpsicord while a man, possibly a violin accompanist, points to a note on the sheet music with a bow. Both faces are caricatured with heavy features and toothy grins as they sing. Both are plainly dressed, the woman a trimmed shawl and small pleated cap. His simple wig may be askew.

33 x 25 cm.
Library of Congress (PC3+1774)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

MON SEIGNEUR LE COX

Pub'd March 18, 1774 by H. Bryer London

A highly caricatured macaroni with long nose, sharp chin, and a wig with enormous curls and queue offers snuff to a seated lady who is elaborately dressed though not as grotesque as the gentleman. The title is printed as verse:

MON SEIGNEUR LE COX
WITH HIS SNUFF & SNUFF BOX//
TREATING MADAM DURéME
WITH A SNUFF OF THE SAME

The print resembles Modern Refinement, or the Two Maccaroni's (1772) in subject and the posture of the male figure.

33 x 25 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (without inscription, 774.3.18.1), Yale Center for British Art (B1970.3.796)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Library of Congress

THE NOBLE MACARONY

J.R. Smith delt & fecit.

London. Publish'd March 24, 1774 by H. Parker, No. 82 Cornhill
price 1s. 6d.

Outside a wine shop, often the cover for a brothel, a richly dressed gentleman looks over a young woman to whom his attention is being directed by a portly older woman who stands behind her in the shop door.

The Huntington Library impression with the fuller inscription identifies The Noble Macarony as a slightly modified variation on A Decoy for the Old as Well as the Young (BMC 4529), which had been published by Carington Bowles exactly a year earlier, "24 March 1773." The Noble Macarony differs in some details, lacking, for instance, the sign "Kind and Tender Usage."

Cat: D'Oench (1999), p. 190

34 x 25.1 cm.
Library of Congress (PC2+n.d., uninscribed beyond the engraver's attribution), Huntington Library (283000 Vol.36 #32)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, New York Public Library

A SCENE IN A CONVENT

Publish'd April 10th 1774 by W. Humphrey, St. Martin's Lane.

A plump monk with a bulbous nose is on his knees before a young woman, his hands clasped as if in prayer as he gazes beseechingly up at her. The subtitle reads:

Dedicated to the wise Parents,
that send their Daughters abroad for Education.

32 x 24.5 cm.
New York Public Library (Satyr p.126)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

ANOTHER SLICE OF PLUMB PUDING FOR COUNCELLOR WOLLUP

Publishd April 24, 1774 by S. Sledge, Henrietta Street Covent Garden

An obese man at table leans back as one of three servants, distinctively small and thin, pours a glass into his open maw. The servants appear to be in a line feeding him, the one far left cutting a slice of pudding which the middle servant is passing to the third on the right who has just emptied the wine glass. The table with tablecloth hold other dishes and a loaf of bread. The man's chest and stomach is covered by a huge napkin, secured around his neck. A portrait of a gentleman hangs on the wall behind.

33 x 25 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (774.4.20.1)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Library of Congress

JOHN, do the Ladies admire ME?

Publish'd 15th May 1774 by W. Humphrey, St. Martin's Lane

A portly, round-shouldered old gentleman walks in the park with a younger handsome companion slightly behind him. The older man's features are exaggerated--long nose, leering gaze and grin--and his queue dangles nearly a yard down the back of his coat. He stands knock-kneed, one hand in his pocket and the other tucked inside his waistcoat. His dress is elaborately trimmed and ribboned and he wears a long sword. He, and his cohort who wears epaulettes, may be officers. The title is the old man's question as they approach two young ladies who turn and smile coyly, one from behind her raised fan. Rather than at the speaker, however, the ladies appear to be looking at his young companion who doffs his cocked hat to greet them.

35 x 25 cm.
Library of Congress (PC3+1774)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Yale Center for British Art, Yale University

Deny it if you can, NINE TAYLORS makes a MAN

From an Original Drawing by Grimm.Carington Bowles excudit

295
Printed for Carington Bowles, Map & Printseller, No. 69 in St. Pauls Church Yard, London. Publish'd as the Act directs (erased)

A master tailor measures cloth at his cutting table upon which sit a row of eight tailors who are busy at the various stages--hemming, tacking, ironing--of a gentleman's order. Dated impressions read "24 May 1774."

32 x 25 cm.
Yale Center for British Art (no date, B1970.3.774))

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Library of Congress

What is this my Son Tom

London, Published by R. Sayer & J. Bennett No 53 Fleet Street as the Act directs 24 June 1774

On a park walkway, an country squire in riding clothes meets a young fop, outfitted in the macaroni style of the early 1770's. The father wears top boots with spurs, breeches with gartered knees, a heavy overcoat and flat felt hat. The son wears small square buckled shoes over stockings, dappled breeches and waistcoat, a trimmed and ribboned coat, a sword and carries a long, tasselled walking stick under his arm. He is most remarkable for the towering toupee wig, over two feet high with three curls on each side, upon which rests a tiny cocked hat. A massive club, nearly as large as the wig, is attached behind. The son steps forward, one hand in his waistcoat, the other extended to greet his father, but the old farmer is absorbed in his amusement at the little cockade to which he points with his riding crop. Immediately behind them is a fence of lathed wood posts and a round knob on the corner post that borders the walk, and further in the distance groves of trees. The verse reads:

Our wise Forefathers would express
Ev'n Sensibility in Dress;
The modern Race delight to Shew
What Folly in Excess can do;//
The honest Farmer come to Town,
Can scarce believe his Son his own:
If thus the Taste continues Here,
What will it be another Year?

The print resembles Carington Bowles' Welladay! Is this My Son Tom! (BMC 4536). The Bowles' print has the date erased but is numbered 298. The George appendix to Vol. V notes that the print #300 is dated "25 June 1774." This is a lively current joke in 1774: see also BMC4537, Be not amazed Dear MOTHER--It is indeed your DAUGHTER ANNE, and BMC 4786, Sarah Sledge's Is this my daughter, Anne? All of the above were published within days of each other during June 1774. See HEYDAY! Is this my DAUGHTER ANNE! (1773) for an earlier version of the joke by Francis Adams.

35.1 x 25 cm.
Library of Congress (PC3+1774), Lewis Walpole Library (774.6.24.1) Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

THE INVITATION

London. Printed for Robt. Sayer & J. Bennett, No. 53 Fleet Street as the Act directs 22nd July 1774

A young woman (r.) in a low cut gown, lace sleeves and a pleated cap, clasps the elbow of a gentleman with both hands to draw him off. He resists, pointing off to the left. The verse records her appeal, his response, and her reply:

Come here my Love? I cant at present stay,
I have Business which will not admit delay;//
A Fig for Business which delays your Bliss,
The most delicious Business is to Kiss.

32.8 x 25 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library(774.7.22.1, also reduced size, dated "14 Oct 1774" but without verse)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, New York Public Library

THE DOUBLE DISAPPOINTMENT

London. Printed for R. Sayer & J. Bennett, No 53 in Fleet Street as the Act directs 25th July 1774

A pretty harlot weighs a coin on a balance and finds it light. The foppish gentlemen (l.) whose coin it is stands before her crestfallen. As she points to the flawed coin, she sits in awkward position on the couch, spread-legged, her dressing gown open to reveal her breasts and petticoat. A round table before her holds a small box of weights. The double disappointment may be his--that the coin is light and he will not have her--and hers that her customer has not proved out. This image by Sayer and Bennett resembles an earlier Carington Bowles impression, The Light Guinea or the Blade in the Dumps, (BM 4534) but among other differences, the perspective is more distant. Also similar is The Light Guinea, or Capt Flash Detected, an engraving by Matthew Darly, August 17, 1774.

32 x 25 cm.
New York Public Library (MEZYRK BM4534A)

Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University

THIS SR. IS THE MEANING OF THE QUEBEC ACT

Published 14 August 1774 by Francis Adams

In this enigmatic droll one man (c.) addresses another (l.) who listens with his eyes closed. Both men are dressed in what seem to be patterned lounging robes, and both wear wigs. The listener's wig indicates a minister or judge while the speaker's is shorter and somewhat askew, suggesting an intensity also evident in his prodding finger. He is notable also for his protruding teeth. To the right, a woman listens with her arms crossed and her eyes fixed on the listener. In the anti-governmental spirit evident in Francis Adams' other political prints, like The Patriotick Barber or Polling for Members, or a Lesson for a New Parliament, the puzzle over the "meaning" here of the Quebec Act would have to do with the contradiction between the ministry's granting Quebec's Catholics broader religious liberties during the same summer it was passing and instituting the Intolerable Acts against New England Protestants.

The print is reproduced in In the Minds and Hearts of the People, Prologue to the American Revolution: 1760-1774 (1974), p. 187. A footnote interprets the print: "two senile members of the old ministry attempt to explain the Quebec Act to one another as a woman looks on, " and describes it as "a satire on Lord Mansfield, who wears a tall wig, and the Earl of Sandwich, whose wife was notorious for supervising his conversations." (220-221). Actually both Mansfield and Sandwich were still in office in 1774 and Sandwich's wife had been declared insane and confined since the mid-60s. The expressions and gestures here suggest a more antagonistic relationship between the ministerial figure and the man and woman who appear to be accosting him.

33.1 x 24.8 cm.
John Carter Brown Library at Brown University

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Lewis Walpole Library

Miss returning from a Visit, or Thomas Fording a Brook with his Mistress

London. Printed for R. Sayer & J. Bennett, No. 53 Fleet Street as the Act directs 20 August 1774

A strong servant crosses a brook bearing his pretty mistress on his shoulders. She looks amused as she holds his cocked hat with her arm and hangs on to his peruke for support. In her right hand she holds a small crop-like stick. On the far right an older couple--perhaps a clergyman and his wife--look on from behind a fence. This is a more light-hearted version of Fording the Brook, published by John Bowles two years earlier. In the Bowles print, the woman is stout and visibly angry at the rustic who was carrying her. George catalogues a print of reduced size (BMC 8265) with this title, dated to Robert Sayer, 10 September 1787, that reverses this image.

33.3 x 25.2 cm.
Lewis Walpole Library (774.8.20.1)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Library of Congress

The Musical Challenge

Publish'd Oct 20th [1774] by J.R. Smith No 4 Exeter & W. Humphrey Gerrard Street, Soho

A musician, directed left, in a feathered hat grins or jeers as he gives the fist to his audience, his left hand holding his right forearm. Under his left arm the scroll and pegs of his violin and his bow are visible. The verse describes the scene:

The Musician despis'd by the ignorant Crowd,
Who deny to his merit the pelf,
Retreats with a grin & a challenge a'loud,
"Let each lass now take care of herself."

35.4 x 25.4 cm.
Library of Congress (year of publication is omitted but Smith's and Humphrey's shop addresses would support a date no later than 1774, PC2+n.d.)

POLLING FOR MEMBERS or A LESSON FOR A NEW PARLIAMENT

Publ. Octr. 25, 1774 by Frans Adams

From an outdoor booth, a figure (r.) in a elaborate judicial wig holds out a book inscribed "Oath Against Bribery" upon which a citizen with a solemn expression swears with his right hand. At the same time behind him, and presumably out of sight of the judge, he extends his left hand into which a passing gentleman drops a £20 note. A signboard in the upper right announces the election tally:
Lord Bribe 2900
Lord Place 2777
Lord Bribenot 1334
Lord Patriot 1245

32.3 x 25.2 cm.
Huntington Library (BMX 1774 Pr.Box 203/58)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Library of Congress

UNTITLED [Tar and feathering]

The scene is a moonlight night. The central figure, tarred and feathered, stands on all fours, his legs straightened to raise his posterior toward a leering demonic figure . A rope that harnesses the victim's thighs is held by an older gentleman who looks at the devil. The gentleman looks self-satisfied with his smile and hands-on-hips stance. The bending figure has a light mustache and long hair tangled with feathers; his facial expression is a grin.

The Library of Congress's The American Revolution in Drawings and Prints: A Checklist of 1765-1790 Graphics in the Library of Congress, pp. 272-273, relates this relatively obscene image to two other prints that play on the tarring and feathering of John Malcolm, a British customs officer, by Bostonians: A New Method of Macarony Making, as practised at Boston and The Bostonian's Paying the Excise-Man, or Tarring & Feathering (BMC 5232), both published in October 1774. In this context, the print could be read as an anti-government satire portraying Malcolm is a toady, a willing and eager instrument of ministerial policy. The devil is a common figure in anti-government satires of the day, often supporting or goading on the ministers. The cocked hat with insignia and heavy curls identifies the gentlemen with contemporary print caricatures of figures from North's ministry.

25.5 x 31.8 cm.
Library of Congress

Courtesy of the Print Collection, New York Public Library

The PLEASURES of a MARRIED STATE

309
Printed for Carington Bowles at his Map & Print Warehouse No. 69 in St. Paul's Church Yard

Set in the sitting room outside a bedchamber with its canopied bed visible through an open door, this family scene shows genteel parents with three children. The husband sits on a settee with his arm around his wife beside him. She looks fondly at him as she holds an infant in nursery dress on her lap. The infant reaches toward her father while he points toward her siblings, a little girl and boy on the right who appear to be reading a book together on the floor. Behind the couple hangs the portrait of a father or grandfather who appears a stern patriarch, a contrast perhaps to this companionate marraige. The subtext declares:

In Mutual Love both rule and both obey,
Her Charms obedient to his judgement sway;//
In tenderness their smiling offspring prove,
United sensibility of Love.

This image is mentioned, but not catalogued, by F.G. Stephans as a companion print to the satiric The Miseries of a Single Life (BMC 4540). Dorothy George's link of date with Carington Bowles' print numbers would indicate publication in late 1774.

31.5 x 24.5 cm.
New York Public Library (Satyr p.195)