"The interior of the Royal Exchange, showing part of two sides of the arcaded quadrangle, and the statue from the waist downwards of Charles II (by Grinling Gibbons) on a high pedestal surrounded by an iron railing. It is crowded with men, talking in couples, or walking off in deep dejection. All are elderly and caricatured and their dress is old-fashioned; one has a Jewish profile."--British Museum online catalogue
Description:
Title etched below image., Printmaker from British Museum catalogue., 1 print : etching on laid paper, hand-colored ; sheet 25 x 35.5 cm., Sheet trimmed within plate mark., Date written in ink above design in contemporary hand: Decr. 1794., and Mounted on leaf 62 of volume 4 of 14 volumes.
Publisher:
Publish'd as the act directs, Decer. 28th, 1794, by S.W. Fores, No. 3 Piccadilly
"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 Mounted on leaf 32 of volume 7 of 14 volumes.
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. 3. Caricature magazine, or, Hudibrastic mirror.
Image Count:
1
Resource Type:
still image
Abstract:
"Simple-minded people gaze up at placards inviting subscriptions to unsound companies. A high wall runs from a house partly visible on the extreme left, to the street corner, enclosing a large building placarded Hospital for Incurables Supported by Voluntary Subscribers [i.e. for victims of speculation mania]. On the right are old-fashioned houses, one of which is alined with a church, the scene suggesting one of the older parts of the City of London with seventeenth-century houses. The high wall on the left is covered with large bills at which the gullible are gazing: [1] Doctors Company--Capital One Million divided into Shares at -- Pr Share--the Advantages incalculable No Charge for Emetics opening draughts Injections &c-- [signed] Sam Sexton Clerk, [2] Patent Coffins provided on the shortest notice --No Surgeons Admitted--. [3] Genuine Milk Company free from Chalk Poison Water &--. [4] Company of Menders--Open to both Sxes in shares at--pr Share. None to be Admitted but who can give undeniable proofs of mending either their wives or Husbands Neighbours or Friends and lastly but most particularly Themselves. [5] Company of Scavengers Nightman [sic] and all imposters to be sent to the House of Correction. [6] Company of White Washers NB No Lawyers admitted [cf. British Museum Satires Nos. 11269, 11272]. [7] More Advantages-- A New Cabbage and Potatoe Compy Warrented Genuine No cooking required saves time and trouble 5s each Share. [8] Match and Tinder Compy Capital 2 Millions five farthings each Share. [9] Blacking Company. On the opposite side of the wide irregular street is a low-grade barber's shop, with the barber shaving a customer in the doorway. Outside the door his dwarfish assistant sharpens a razor on a grindstone. Above the door is a large tilted board: Tim, Slashem Barber and Perriwig Maker--begs leave to inform the patronizers of Merit--that he means to form a New Company of Mowers of Beards having discovered a New Machine to Shave 60 men in a minute, to comb oil and powder their wigs in the Bargain. NB. Bleeding and Teeth drawn gratis. The striped pole slants forward above the board. At a casement window under the roof a woman is washing; a cat prowls on the tiles. This is a corner-house, its (invisible) side facing Bubble Alley, where the corner-house has a large placard: Peter Puff--Manufacturer of Deal Boards--without Knots from genuine Saw dust &c. At right angles to this is a narrow street receding towards the church. On this are more bills and a projecting lantern: Subscri[bers or ptions] taken in here. Spectators gaze at the bills in the foreground, middle distance, and background. On the left a fat 'cit' and his taller and more fashionable wife walk purposefully; she dangles a reticule, his hand is deep in a pocket, they are clearly deluded subscribers. A yokel and his wife gaze up at the 'Milk Company' advertisement. On the right a countryman on horseback followed by his dog stares up at the barber's notice, as does a bearded Jew carrying a sack (of old clothes)."--British Museum online catalogue
Description:
Title etched below image., Date of publication from British Museum catalogue., Plate numbered "174" in upper right corner., Plate from: Woodward, G.M. Caricature magazine, or Hudibrastic mirror. London : Thomas Tegg, [1808?], v. 3., Also issued separately., "Price one shilling coloured.", Sheet trimmed within plate mark., Temporary local subject terms: Churches - Jewish people -- Male costumes -- Female costumes -- Incurables Hospital., 1 print : etching on wove paper, hand-colored ; sheet 25.5 x 38.6 cm., Sheet trimmed within plate mark on top edge., and Mounted on leaf 27 of volume 10 of 14 volumes.
Publisher:
Pubd. by Thos. Tegg
Subject (Topic):
Jews, Barbershops, Churches, and Posting signs & notices
