"A Thames wherry passes close to the wall of a riverside tavern, and is about to go under a high timber bridge. The two oarsmen have immense artificial-looking whiskers and curled hair, cf. British Museum satires no. 15962, no hats, and wear striped shirts, open at the neck, nautical in cut. They row a lady who sits erect in a grotesquely huge hat, with wide brim, high jam-pot crown, and towering ribbons. They row badly and carelessly. In waterside arbours spectators drink and smoke. On the extreme left steps lead to the water, and two more amateur oarsmen, looking like buccaneers, stand, while a boatman in waders holds the bow of a boat. Behind are urban houses."--British Museum online catalogue
Alternative Title:
Above bridge. No. 1
Description:
Title etched below image., Series title etched above image. No more published?, Print signed using William Heath's device: A man with an umbrella., Date of publication from the British Museum catalogue., and Sheet trimmed within plate mark.
Publisher:
Pub. by T. McLean, 26 Haymarket, London
Subject (Geographic):
London (England) and England
Subject (Topic):
Social life and customs, Clothing & dress, Hats, Boats, Bridges, Pipes (Smoking), Restaurants, Smoking, Taverns (Inns), and Waiters
"The Duchess of St. Albans, immensely fat, florid, and bejewelled, and a stout elderly naval officer wearing loose wide trousers, and apparently doing hornpipe steps, his hands on his hips, dance side by side with rollicking abandon. The others of the set: one man and two ladies on the left and one lady and two men on the right dance rigidly erect, and watch the central pair with hauteur; the men are dandies, the women slim and fashionable. The duchess has a swirling paradise-plume in her towering loops of hair, above tossing ringlets."--British Museum online catalogue
Alternative Title:
Run neighbours, run, St. Albans is quadrilling it
Description:
Title etched below image., Print signed using William Heath's device: A man with an umbrella., British Museum curator's note: The naval officer is (unconvincingly) identified by E. Hawkins as Sir George Warrender (1782-1849), a Huskissonite M.P. who was never in the navy; he was a Lord of the Admiralty 1812-22; he appears, in back view, in a "Sketch of a Ball at Almack's, 1815" (Gronow, 'Reminiscences', 1892, ii, frontispiece). Perhaps Lord Amelius Beauclerk (1771-1806), her husband's uncle. Cf. 'Croker Papers', 1884, ii. 200., and Watermark: 1827.
Publisher:
Pub. by T. McLean, 26 Haymarket
Subject (Geographic):
England
Subject (Name):
St. Albans, Harriot Mellon, Duchess of, 1777?-1837, Beauclerk, Amelius, 1771-1846, and Warrender, George, 1782-1849
Subject (Topic):
Clothing & dress, Dandies, British, Obesity, Balls (Parties), and Dance