print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.5433
- Title
- Object: Sig. L-n-rd-'s grand triumphal entry into Tottenham Court Road taken on the spot May 13 1785
- Description
-
A crowd surrounds Lunardi who is carried on the shoulders of a group of men: he waves his hat and smiles. On the extreme left a portion of his balloon is visible, obscuring the 'Adam and Eve' public house, indicated by its projecting sign of Adam and Eve with the apple, inscribed 'W. Shaw'. A tattered banner waves. A ragged chimney-sweep (?), holding a small boy before him, rides an ass. In the foreground are a milk-woman with a pail, a butcher, and a stout man holding up a courtesan to see Lunardi. Beneath the design is etched:
'An adventerous stripling so sweet Ovid Sings
Had the boldness to Soar once on two mighty Wings.
Unguided by Judgment and wandring too high
He met his Just fate and was plungd from the Sky
See first Voyage pag. 65.'
[A quotation from 'An Epistle to Sig. Vincenzo Lunardi' printed in his 'Account of the first Aerial Voyage in England', 1784. It continues:
'And all that the world from this tale have been able
To learn, was, to give false Ambition a fable. -
But from flights such as yours we've reason to hope
Philosophy one Day may gain wider scope, . . .] 13 May 1785
Etching
- Production date
- 1785
- Dimensions
-
Height: 238 millimetres
-
Width: 290 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VI, 1938)
The mob appears good-natured, but is said to have been 'a good deal exasperated, and Lunardi, not without some hazard, escaped from their fury'. 'London Chronicle', 1785, 14 May. The ascent was made from the Artillery Ground; in less than half an hour the balloon burst and descended near the Adam and Eve Tea Gardens. Ibid. Cf. BMSat 6858.
Banks Collection, i, fol. 35. B.M.L. 1890. e. 15.
A print, 'Lunardi Downfall in Totnamcourt Road', is in the same collection, fol. 35. The ascent from the Artillery Ground on 15 Sept. is the subject of two prints, ibid., fol. 30.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.5433