Egyptian sketches extracted from the portfolio of an ingenious young artist attached to the Institut National at Cairo which was found on board a Tartane intercepted on its voyage to Marseilles / [graphic]Gillray, James, 1756-1815, printmaker[12 March 1799]eng"Emblematical frontispiece to a set of six prints on the Expedition to Egypt, see BMSats 9356-61. Two sphinxes, back to back on a stone slab (on which are the signature and imprint), support a stone ornament inscribed with the title ... The sphinxes wear cocked hats with tricolour cockades, and have rapacious claws. Behind the inscription is a pyramid up which climbs an ape dressed as a (ragged) French officer holding up a large bonnet-rouge (such as was then carried on the masts of French men-of-war) in order to place it on the apex. In his sash is a blood-stained dagger. A nude man, symbolizing Folly, wearing a fool's cap, clutches his coat-tail, holding up a cap and bells, the cap on an ass's head. Large clouds, and a line of desert with pyramids on the horizon, form a background."--British Museum online catalogueTitle from text in image.Thirteen lines of text below title: The situations in which the artist occasionally represents his countrymen are a sufficient proof of an impartiality and fidelity, which cannot be too much commended ...Frontispiece to a set of six plates on the French Expedition to Egypt, purported to have been drawn by a fellow expedition member.Sheet trimmed within plate mark.Temporary local subject terms: Egyptian campaign, 1798-1801-- Pyramids -- Sphinxes -- Emblems: tricolored cockade -- Bonnet rouge -- Frenchmen: monkey as a Frenchman -- Jesters -- Fool's cap -- Personifications: Folly.1 print : etching on wove paper, hand-colored ; plate mark 24.8 x 35.1 cm, on sheet 28.7 x 39.3 cm.Mounted on leaf 3 of volume 5 of 12.