Print shows Priestley walking right to left, diagonally away from the spectator; his face, turned in profile to the left, has a sinister smile. He holds out, as firebrands, two burning papers: 'Political Sermon' and 'Essay on Government'. From his pockets other papers project inscribed: 'Revolution Toasts, Essays on Matlin [sic] Spirit' and 'Gunpowder'. He tramples on books and papers, including an open book: 'Bible explained away.' Cf. British Museum catalogue
Description:
Title engraved below image., Possibly executed by Samuel Collings, who is believed to have employed the pseudonym Annibal Scratch for some of his prints., Questionable attribution to John Nixon from unverified data in local catalog record., Text above image: Attic miscellany. Political portraiture no. 4., and Plate issued as an illustration in: Attic miscellany. London : Printed for Bentley and Co., v. 2, no. 22 (1791), page 369.
Publisher:
Published as the act directs by W. Locke
Subject (Name):
Priestley, Joseph, 1733-1804 and Priestley, Joseph, 1733-1804.
Print shows three fashionable dandies in a well-furnished room. One (left) sings, seated, and with a leg resting on a second (lyre-backed) chair; he leans sentimentally, hand on heart, towards a lutanist reclining on a (Regency) sofa playing an ornate curiously shaped instrument. The third stands behind the sofa, playing a flageolet, and admiring himself in a mirror above the ornate fireplace. The vocalist holds an open music-book: 'Love has eyes.' On the floor beside him are two others: 'The Lovesick Swain set to Music' and 'Our Warbling Notes and Ivory lutes Shall ravish every ear.' Two whole length portraits flank the mirror, one of a lady in quasi-Elizabethan dress, the other of a man similarly dressed, both having pinched waists and full busts. Below one is a picture of 'Vacuna' [Goddess of rural leisure], a blowzy woman lying under a tree; below the other, a grotesque 'Narcissus' admires his reflection. On the end of the sofa sits a grotesquely clipped (and dandified) poodle suckling puppies
Alternative Title:
Dandy trio and Hummingbirds, or, A dandy trio
Description:
Title etched below image., After a design by amateur caricaturist John Sheringham; see British Museum catalogue., Later state, with G. Humphrey's original imprint replaced. For an earlier state, see no. 13446 in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires, v. 9., A reissue of a print originally published 15 July 1819 by G. Humphrey. This later state was included in Thomas McLean's 1835 collective reissue of several Cruikshank etchings entitled "Cruikshankiana : an assemblage of the most celebrated works of George Cruikshank ...", and Sheet trimmed within plate mark.
Publisher:
Pubd. by Thos. McLean, 26, Haymarket
Subject (Geographic):
England, London, England., and London.
Subject (Topic):
Dandies, Fashion, Clothing and dress, British, Interiors, Musicial instruments, Musicians, Music, Parlors, and Poodles