"A domestic interior. A fat and ugly citizen, wearing old-fashioned dress with a small unpowdered wig, stands on the hearth-rug (right), his back to the fire; he is meditatively reading the 'Gazette', headed: 'New Taxes', and 'Bankru[pts]', his left hand plunged in his breeches pocket. Behind him on the chimney-piece is a pair of scales for weighing guineas (see BMSat 5128). His wife, bald-headed, ugly, and stout, leans back in an arm-chair, her hands raised in protest at an unpowdered wig which a grotesquely thin and ragged French hairdresser (left) proffers obsequiously. A fashionably dressed young man with cropped hair looks with imbecile surprise at his reflection in an oval mirror over the chimney-piece. His mouth is half-covered by his swathed neckcloth, he wears a short spencer (see BMSat 8192) over a sparrow-tail coat, and half-boots. A young woman with over-dressed but unpowdered (red) hair looks with dismay at her reflection in a mirror which she has snatched from the wall. On the wall is an oval bust portrait of 'Charles 2d', his tiny head framed in an immense powdered wig."--British Museum online catalogue.
Alternative Title:
Frugal family saving the guinea
Description:
Title etched below image.
Publisher:
H. Humphrey, No. 37 New Bond Street
Subject (Name):
Auchincloss, Hugh Dudley--Ownership., Harvey, Francis--Ownership., and Humphrey, Hannah, active 1774-1817, publisher.
"Pitt, fast asleep, wearing only nightcap and night-shirt, walks down a staircase holding up a lighted candle in his right hand. On his right only are banisters, on his left the steps abut on a gulf indicated by the top of an arch supporting the stair; he is about to descend the first step, perilously near the left edge. Behind him, in a wall of heavy masonry, is an open door surmounted by a crown. A tall gothic window pierces the wall of the building."--British Museum online catalogue.
Alternative Title:
Sleepwalker
Description:
Possibly etched from a drawing by Sneyd. See British Museum catalogue., Printmaker from British Museum catalogue., and Title etched below image.
Subject (Name):
Auchincloss, Hugh Dudley--Ownership., Harvey, Francis--Ownership., Humphrey, Hannah, active 1774-1817, publisher., Pitt, William,--1759-1806--Caricatures and cartoons., and Sneyd, William, artist.