"From the bustle and life visible on all sides it would seem that the period is fair-time, when the rustics and agricultural population of the vicinity in general flock into the town, holiday-making. A travelling mountebank has established his theatre in the market place; the person of the ingenious charlatan is decked out in a fine court dress, with bag wig, powder, sword, and laced hat complete, the better to excite the respect of his audience; he is holding forth on the marvellous properties ascribed to the nostrums which he is seeking to palm off on the simple villagers as wonder-working elixirs; while his attendants, Merry Andrew and Jack Pudding, are going through their share of the performance. One branch of the mountebank physician's profession was the drawing of teeth; an unfortunate sufferer is submitting himself to the hands of the empiric's assistant. The rural audience is stolidly contemplating the antics of the party, without being particularly moved by Dr. Botherum's imposing eloquence, these vagabond scamps being frequently clever rogues, blessed with an inexhaustible fund of bewildering oratory, and witty repartee at glib command. Leaving the quack, we find plentiful and suggestive materials to employ the humourist's skilful graver scattered around. In the centre, a scene of jealousy is displayed; the beguilements of a portly butcher are prevailing against the assumed privileges of a slip-shod tailor, who is seemingly tempted to have recourse to his sheers, to cut the amorous entanglement summarily asunder. On the left, the promiscuous and greedy feeding associated with 'fairings,' is going busily forward, and on the opposite side are exhibited all the drolleries which can be got out of a Jew pedlar, his pack, the diversified actions of customers he is trying to tempt with his wares, and the bargains for finery into which the fair and softer sex are vainly trying to beguile the cunning Hebrew on their own accounts. It seems probable that Rowlandson in his print of Doctor Botherum may have had a certain Doctor Bossy in his eye, a German practitioner of considerable skill, who enjoyed a comfortable private practice, said to have been the last of the respectable charlatans who exhibited in the British metropolis. This benevolent empiric, as Angelo informs us, dispensed medicines and practised the healing art, publicly and gratuitously on a stage, his booth being erected weekly in the midst of Covent-Garden Market, where the mountebank, handsomely dressed and wearing a gold-laced cocked hat, arrived in his chariot with a liveried servant behind. According to the old custom, the itinerant quack-doctor, with his attendant gang, was as constant a visitor at every market-place as the pedlar with his pack."--Grego
Description:
Title etched below image., Attributed to Rowlandson by Grego., Sheet trimmed within plate mark., Twelve lines of verse below image, six on either side of title: High o'er the gaping crowd, on market day, while Andrew drolls the blockheads pence away ..., Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires., Temporary local Medical Library subject terms: Mountebanks -- Tooth Extraction -- Dr. Bossey., and 1 print : aquatint and etching, hand-colored ; sheet 373 x 433 mm.
Publisher:
Pubd. 6 March 1800 at R. Ackermann's Repository of the Arts, 101 Strand
Subject (Topic):
Quacks and quackery, Teeth, Extraction, Jews, City & town life, Plazas, Medicine shows, Audiences, Crowds, Peddlers, and Butchers
V. 1. Caricature magazine, or, Hudibrastic mirror.
Image Count:
1
Resource Type:
still image
Abstract:
"A fat doctor is trundled down a hill in a wheelbarrow by a lean and amused countryman. His fat wife walks beside the barrow, holding his wig, hat, and stick, and angrily threatens him with her fist, while a dog runs in front. They have just left a thatched and gabled inn (left), with a sign, 'The Horns', and a placard over the door: 'Real Yorkshire Stingo Wines Cordials'. Jovial village notables sit outside the door, drinking and smoking; two, much amused, stand to watch the departure. A cock (left) with three hens squawks at the barrow."--British Museum online catalogue, description of an earlier state
Description:
Title etched below image, Reissue; imprint has been completely burnished from plate., Publication information inferred from earlier state with the imprint "Pubd. November 30th, 1810, by Thos. Tegg, No. 111 Cheapside." Cf. No. 11641 in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum, v. 8., Sheet trimmed within plate mark on top edge., Plate from: Woodward, G.M. Caricature magazine, or Hudibrastic mirror. London : Thomas Tegg, [1808?], v. 1., Also issued separately., "Price one shilling coloured.", Cf. Grego, J. Rowlandson the caricaturist, v. 2, page 194., Temporary local subject terms: Doctors -- Medical disease: gout -- Birds -- "Henpecked husband" -- Inns: 'The Horns' -- Signboards: 'The Horns,' 'Real Yorkshire Stingo Wines Cordials'., Temporary local Medical Library subject terms: Marriage & married life., 1 print : etching, hand-colored ; sheet 25.5 x 35.0 cm., and Series statement partially rubbed out.
"The doctor, mounted on Grizzle, is beside a four-direction signpost on an open heath with a group of asses in the middle distance."--British Museum online catalogue, description of a later version of the design
Alternative Title:
Doctor Syntax losing his way
Description:
Title etched below image., Attribution to Rowlandson from Grego., Sheet trimmed within plate mark., Plate from: Combe, W. The tour of Dr. Syntax in search of the picturesque. London: R. Ackermann's Respository of Arts, 1812., "Plate 2"--Upper right corner., For an early version of the design, published in 1809 in Ackermann's The Poetical magazine, see no. 11508 in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires, v. 6. See also: Grego, J. Rowlandson the caricaturist, v. 2, page 176. For a later version of the design, published in 1813, see British Museum online catalogue, registration no.: 1866,1114.848., and Temporary local Medical Library subject terms: Doctor Syntax.
Publisher:
Published 1 May 1812, at R Ackermann's Repository of Arts, 101 Strand
Subject (Name):
Combe, William, 1742-1823.
Subject (Topic):
Clergy, Teachers, Horseback riding, Traffic signs & signals, and Donkeys
Title etched below image., Later state, with beginning of imprint statement reworked to remove date. For an earlier state with the imprint "Pubd. Septr. 10, 1799, by R. Akerman, Strand", see Lewis Walpole Library call no.: 799.09.10.02., Sheet trimmed within plate mark., Series title and number etched above image., Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires., Temporary local subject terms: Doctors -- Medicine bottles -- Food: reference to beans & bacon., and 1 print : etching, hand-colored ; plate mark 245 x 195 mm.
Publisher:
Pubd. by R. Akerman, Strand
Subject (Topic):
Drugs, Pulse, Diet, Physicians, Medicines, and Bottles
Title etched below image., Series title and number etched above image., Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires., Temporary local subject terms: Doctors -- Medicine bottles -- Food: reference to beans & bacon., 1 print : etching, hand-colored ; sheet 245 x 194 mm., and Sheet trimmed to plate mark.
Publisher:
Pubd. Septr. 10, 1799, by R. Akerman, Strand
Subject (Topic):
Drugs, Pulse, Diet, Physicians, Medicines, and Bottles
V. 4. Caricature magazine, or, Hudibrastic mirror.
Image Count:
1
Resource Type:
still image
Abstract:
"A dying man, wearing a tattered shirt, lies stretched on a miserable bed under a casement window, through which looks Death, a skeleton holding up an hour-glass and a javelin which he points menacingly at his victim. A fat doctor (left) sits asleep at the bedside (left) while an undertaker's man, with a coffin on his back, and holding a crêpe-bound mute's wand, enters from the right as if smelling out death. The doctor wears old-fashioned dress, with powdered wig, and has a huge gold-headed cane. Beside him are the words: "I purge I bleed I sweat em, Then if they Die I Lets em"."--British Museum online catalogue
Alternative Title:
One too many
Description:
Title etched below image., Probably a later state; beginning of imprint statement appears to have been burnished from plate., Date of publication from British Museum catalogue and Grego., Sheet trimmed within plate mark., Plate from: Woodward, G.M. Caricature magazine, or Hudibrastic mirror. London : Thomas Tegg, [1808?], v. 4., Also issued separately., Plate numbered "292" in upper right corner., Temporary local subject terms: Doctor., Temporary local Medical Library subject terms: Skeleton as Death., 1 print : etching, hand-colored ; sheet 25.5 x 39.5 cm., and Watermark: 1819.
Publisher:
Thos. Tegg, No. 111 Cheapside
Subject (Topic):
Death (Personification), Skeletons, Physicians, Undertakers, Coffins, Hourglasses, Interiors, Sick persons, Deathbeds, and Windows
Title etched at bottom of plate., Printmaker based on similar plates by Rowlandson, likewise published by Ackermann in 1799. See nos. 9488-9492 in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires, v. 7., Design consists of three strips arranged horizontally with various scenes, each row with an imprint etched at bottom center. The plate number is etched above the top row, centered., Imperfect; sheet trimmed within plate mark with loss of top two rows of design and plate numbering. Description based on impression at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession no.: 59.533.1268., Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires., Temporary local Medical Library subject terms: Mountebanks., 1 print : etching with stipple, hand-colored ; sheet 10.3 x 18.5 cm., and Imperfect; sheet trimmed within plate mark with significant loss of text and image. Only the center scene in the middle row of design is present, along with the imprint below. This scene shows a mountebank on a stage addressing a crowd, with the dialogue "The noted Doctor Humbug - cures all disorders incident to the human body!" etched within image.
Publisher:
Pubd. July 21, 1799, at R. Ackermann's, 101 Strand
Title etched below image., Imperfect; most of the three-row design has been trimmed away, with only the center image in the top row present. Description based on more perfect impression in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession no.: 59.533.1271., Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires., Temporary local Medical Library subject terms: Medical fees -- Ear trumpets., and Sheet trimmed to 9.2 x 12.6 cm.
Publisher:
Pubd. Novr. 20, 1800 by R. Ackermann, No. 101 Strand
"The artist introduces us to the laboratory of a so-called alchemist. A roguish Jew and his familiar are busily engaged in the transmutation of metals; the servant, with a pair of long- nozzled bellows, is engaged in kindling the furnace, in which is a crucible; various retorts, alembics, and other paraphernalia of the 'black arts,' are scattered about, as well as a formula for 'changing lead into gold'; although the alchemists at best could only contrive to accomplish the reverse transmutation. Suggestive prints are hung on the walls of this chamber of mystery, such as the portrait of the notorious 'Count Cagliostro, discoverer of the Philosopher's Stone,' and the figure of the spurious 'Bottle Conjurer.' A military officer, in the next apartment, is turning his opportunities to more practical advantage by embracing, with a certain display of ardour, a pretty maiden who is nothing loth, the daughter, it appears, of the philosophically minded investigator."--Grego, J. Rowlandson the caricaturist
Alternative Title:
Searching for the philosophers stone
Description:
Title etched below image., Signed in image, lower left., Traces of burnished lettering in lower right corner of design., Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires., Temporary local subject terms: Hoaxes: allusion to bottle conjurer -- Male costume -- Furniture: chest -- Philosopher's stone., Temporary local Medical Library subject terms: Sex behavior., 1 print : aquatint with etching, hand-colored ; sheet 25.8 x 32.1 cm., and Imperfect; sheet trimmed within plate mark with loss of imprint from lower left. The title is also separated from the rest of the sheet, having been trimmed away and then mounted beneath the design.
Publisher:
Pub. March 12, 1800, at R. Ackermans Repository of the Arts, N. 101 Strand