c1822 Folio Size Engraving AN ELECTION ENTERTAINMENT Plate 1 by Hogarth (HL)

Beschreibung

Listing Template 2018 Home About Us View Feedback Contact Us c1822 Folio Size Engraving AN ELECTION ENTERTAINMENT Plate 1 by Hogarth (HL)Click image to enlargeDescriptionc1822A fine folio size original copper engravingtitled:AN ELECTION ENTERTAINMENT Plate 1A fine large folio size engraving (62cm x 46cm including margins) in good condition with later hand colourThis crowded print depicts the drunkeness, gluttony, violence, bribery and deception that occur at an alcoholic political banquet. The feast takes place in an inn decorated with a picture of William III (slashed by the celebrating Whigs); next to it hangs a politician's coat of arms showing three guineas and the words Speak and Have. A bellowing mouth surmounts the emblem.At the head of the table sits one of the two Whig candidates for Parliament. His name, according to the rectangular petition being given him, is Sir Commodity Taxem. This precious beau endures with a patient smile the kiss of a fat, toothless woman whose face is pushed into his. The prankster who holds these two together burns the politician's wig with his piple. The victim puts his arm as far around the stout woman as it will go. A little girl steals the ring from his finger. The party flag Liberty and Loyalty hangs above them. Next to them the second politician is beset by two drunks; the first, whose face bears four scratch marks, oppresses the man with his talk and blinds him with his pipe smoke; the second plays lustfully with his hand. Behind them two men vie for a lady's favors.Further down the table sits a prodigiously fat clergyman surrounded by food and good drinkand#8212;the bottle next to him is marked Champagne. Next to him a convivial old man has drawn the fiddler from the band by means of a drink. Behind them a Scot remonstrates with the idle musician and scratches himself. At the second table three simpleminded figures share a bottle of Burgundy while one of them makes faces on a kerchief. A cripple in acute but undefined distress sits next to him. At the end of the table the mayor, slumped back in his grand chair, is being bled unseccessfully; he has passed out, perhaps died, from overeating; an oyster remains on his fork.Directly behind him an election agent attempts to bribe a Methodist tailor who stand in the pose of a saint. The tailor's wife tries to persuade him with her fist, and his son supports her by pointing to the toes which peer through his shoe. A brick has struck another election agent as he enters the names in his ledger under Sure Votes or Doubtfull. His fall has overturned the table behind him and spilled food on the floor. Next to a lobster (which appears about to eat a pork chop) lie a box of pipes and some tobacco (Kirtons Best); the Act against Bribery and Cor[ruption] has, appropriately enough, been made into spills.In the center of the foreground sit two thugs returned from battle; the broken club of one lies on the floor next to a captured Tory sign Give us our Eleven Days. [In 1752 England adopted the Gregorian Calendar and eleven days were omitted in September.] The rough butcher (wearing the Latin dictum Pro Patria on his hat) pours gin into the head wound of his companion, who drinks the liqour as an anesthetic. To the amazement of the boy who fills up a tub of punch, the man's head accepts the liquid as if it were empty. An unhappy Quaker who has come to sell election insignia looks at a credit note reading April 1 1754 I promise to Pay to Abel Squat the Sum of Fifty pounds Six m[o]nths after date Value Re[cei]ved Rich Slim. At the door a hand-to-hand combat of uncertain cause takes place.Outside a Tory procession passes by, bearing the party platform slogans Liberty and Property, Marry and Multiply in Spite of the Devil and No Jews on an effigy of a Jew. The Tories throw rocks in through the window. One Whig empties a chamber pot on the mob, and another prepares to throw a stool out the windowWilliam Hogarth (1697 - 1764) was born in London, the son of an. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 234168103871_b42786a

Bibliografische Details

Titel: c1822 Folio Size Engraving AN ELECTION ...