- Museum number
- 1851,0901.1237
- Title
- Object: The New Dynasty:-or- The Little Corsican Gardiner Planting a Royal-Pippin-Tree.- "All the talents", busy, in clearing the ground of old Timber-
- Description
-
After the title: ' - vide, the Berlin Telegraph, of May 21st 1807 - Article - the Genealogy of the Royal - Race of the King of Ballynahinch - See Morg Post June 17th.' Napoleon and Talleyrand plant the genealogical tree of Lord Moira, inscribed 'Royal Pippin'. On the r. Grenville, Howick, and Buckingham ply their axes on the trunk of a huge oak-tree: 'The Royal-Oak'. In the background are rows of other 'Royal Pippins', just grafted on old stocks. Talleyrand digs the hole, placing his deformed foot on his spade. Napoleon, in profile to the right., is about to plant the pippin, whose root is a coroneted apple inscribed 'William the Norman Robber'; on its branches are other coroneted or crowned pippins. The main stem culminates in the whiskered face of Moira, wearing a royal crown. This is reached through a 'Plantagenet beheaded in 1415', and 'Henry de la Pole beheaded in 1538'. Collateral branches are 'Duchess of Clarence put to death in 1453', 'Hungerford Beheaded 1406', 'Crookback Richard killd at Bosworth', 'Edmund 4th Son of Henry 3d Beheaded', 'Countess Salisbury Beheaded in 1505.' Napoleon wears his large plumed bicorne, the peak on his neck, jack-boots, and a gardeners apron over his uniform. His long sabre is inscribed 'Corsican Grafting Knife.' Talleyrand wears a laced coat and cocked hat of the ancien régime, with bag-wig, sword, clerical bands, and rosary. From his pocket hangs a paper: 'Projet pour Agrandisser les Jardins Imperial'. In the foreground (l.) are three grafts ready to be joined to stocks; they lie against a basket labelled 'Grafts of King-Pippins for Brentford, Wimbleton, & Botley'. The centre and longest has the head of Cobbett, the others have the heads of Burdett and Horne Tooke. All wear royal crowns; Tooke has clerical bands.
The 'Royal-Oak' (r.), an aged but still magnificent tree, whose trunk is gashed by the axes of the late Ministers, has a large royal crown in the centre of its branches, flanked by four giant acorns: 'Protestant Faith' (near a withered branch), 'Integrity of the Lords', 'Independence of the Commons', 'Liberty of the Press'. All the wood-cutters are in their shirt-sleeves. Grenville is back-to-back with Talleyrand; a cross dangling from a rosary hangs against his massive posterior, his waistcoat is striped in tricolour, his axe is a 'Catholic Cleaver'. Behind him the spectacled Buckingham raises a 'Broad-Bottom Hatchet' [see BMSat 10530]. Howick (r.), very thin and aggressive, plies a 'Whig Cleaver'. Funguses grow round the tree and on the lower part of the trunk.
In the background is the Imperial nursery garden: rows of newly joined grafts the point of junction with the stock being an egg-shaped lump of 'Corsican Clay'. Crowned heads sprout from green leaves; they are (l. to r.): 'Eutrurian [sic] Pippin', 'Wirtemburg Pippin' [the face that of a plump woman, nd probably intended for the Queen, see BMSat 10440], 'Saxon Pippin', 'Holland Pippin', 'Itaian [sic] Pippin'. Many others, less defined, recede in perspective. 25 June 1807
Hand-coloured etching.
- Production date
- 1807
- Dimensions
-
Height: 255 millimetres
-
Width: 361 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VIII, 1947)
Moira, a favourite butt of Gillray, see BMSat 9184, &c, is ridiculed as King of Ballynahinch, the name of his Irish estate; he had boasted of the loyalty of the town of Ballynahinch shortly before rebellion broke out there and pikes were found hidden in his woods. There is also a gibe at the Irish tendency to claim descent from kings of Ireland, e.g. the Sheridan claim ridiculed by Cobbett, cf. BMSat 10708. The burlesque genealogy relates to his descent through his mother, from the Hastings, Hungerford, and Huntingdon families, with their ancient baronies. The third Lord Hungerford was beheaded in 1464. For Napoleon's puppet kings see BMSat 10518. He converted the Grand Duchy of Tuscany into the Kingdom of Etruria in 1801 (absorbing it into the French Empire in Jan. 1808). In 1806 he made the Elector, Frederick Augustus, King of Saxony. For Louis of Holland see BMSat 10581, &c. Napoleon was crowned King of Italy in May 1805, see BMSat 10432, and then nominated his step-son Eugène Beauharnais as Viceroy. The three grafts had co-operated in the Westminster Election, see BMSat 10733, &c.: Botley was Cobbett's Hampshire farm; Tooke, ex-parson of Brentford (see BMSats 4863, 9716, &c), which was associated with Burdett as the polling-place for Middlesex, see BMSat 9878, &c., lived at Wimbledon, where Burdett had a neighbouring house. For the fall of the Ministry see BMSat 10709, &c.
Grego, 'Gillray', p. 350 (reproduction). Wright and Evans, No. 338. Reprinted, 'G.W.G.', 1830. Broadley, i. 258. Reproduced, Grand-Carteret, 'Napoléon', No. 180; Fuchs, i. 166.
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For earlier examples of related compositions, see BM Satires 4006.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1995/6 Nov-Feb, The Hague, Historische Museum, Imaginary Fatherland
- Associated names
-
Associated with: George Nugent Temple Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham
-
Associated with: Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet
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Associated with: Eugène de Beauharnais
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Associated with: Charlotte, Princess Royal (later Queen of Württemberg)
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Associated with: William Cobbett
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Associated with: Frederick Augustus I and III, Elector and King of Saxony and Grand Duke of Warsaw
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Associated with: William Wyndham Grenville, Baron Grenville
-
Associated with: Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey
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Associated with: Robert Hungerford, 3rd Baron Hungerford and Baron Moleyns
-
Associated with: Francis Rawdon Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings and 2nd Earl of Moira
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Associated with: Napoléon I, Emperor of the French (Napoleon)
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Associated with: Sir Henry Pole, Baron Montague of Montacute
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Associated with: Richard III, King of England
-
Associated with: Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, Prince de Benevento
-
Associated with: John Horne Tooke
-
Associated with: William I, King of England (William the Conqueror)
- Acquisition date
- 1851
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1851,0901.1237