print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1864,0309.186
- Title
-
Object: Imitations at Drury-Lane Theatre
-
Series: Picturesque Beauties of Boswell. Part the Second
- Description
-
The pit of a theatre: Boswell stands in the centre of the front row behind a row of spikes, emitting a blast from his mouth, putting his hands on his cheeks. The man next him (right) protects his face with his hat; two men on the left are amused, one claps. Behind him are several rows of laughing heads. Two musicians in the foreground turn their heads. Beneath the title is engraved the passage beginning:
'A great many years ago, when Dr Hugh Blair & I were sitting together in the Pit of Drury Lane Play-house ... I entertained the audience Prodigiously, by imitating the lowing of a Cow. - . It is continued from the accompanying footnote, ending, "My dear Sir, I would confine myself to the Cow!"
Vide Journal P. 499.' [pp. 496-7 in the 1st edition where the name of Dr. Hugh Blair is omitted.] 20 June 1786
Etching
- Production date
- 1786
- Dimensions
-
Height: 255 millimetres
-
Width: 275 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VI, 1938)
For this imitation cf. BMSat 7031.
Grego, 'Rowlandson', i. 198.
The last of a set of twenty plates, 1864,0309.167 to 186, bound together in an album along with letterpress handbills listing the prints and prices for each part (10s. 6d.).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1864
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1864,0309.186