print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1851,0901.205
- Title
- Object: The dissolution, or young grocer making palatable punch for his company
- Description
-
Pitt (left) stands in profile to the right making punch in an enormous punch-bowl which stands on a low table with six carved legs. He squeezes (in place of lemons) the heads of Fox and North; liquid pours from them into the bowl, in which is a sugar-loaf inscribed 'House of Commons' with a drawing of the interior of the House: the Speaker in his chair, the clerk at his table, and rows of seated members on each side, one member standing to speak. Pitt, who wears a long apron, is saying, "Thus I dissolve ye------ Thus thy parts being disunited, the effects will be less pernicious to my Constitution". Beside the bowl on the table is a large bottle of 'Popular Spirit', cf. BMSat 6438, &c. The bowl is decorated with an escutcheon on which is a cask with two canisters, the supporters being two jovial-looking men, each with a flag. This is probably a burlesqued coat of arms for the Grocers' Company (not resembling their own). On the wall behind (right) is very faintly etched a circular temple resting on a bracket, indicating the part played by Lord Temple in the defeat of the Coalition, cf. BMSat 6417, &c. 16 April 1784
Etching
- Production date
- 1784
- Dimensions
-
Height: 241 millimetres
-
Width: 262 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VI, 1938)
Pitt received the freedom of the Grocers' Company on 14 Feb., see BMSat 6442, &c. Cf. election verses, 'The Grocer's Delight; or, a Sugar Plumb for Master Billy', Westminster Election, p. 468. For the dissolution see BMSat 6476, &c.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1851
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1851,0901.205