print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.11833
- Title
-
Object: The Royal cosset.
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Series: Political Sketches
- Description
-
No. 516. A young women standing behind a fence at left (Queen Victoria), holding a basket, feeding flowers to a sheep with a man's face, lettered with 'V' and the image of a crown on its back (Lord Melbourne); a group of sheep with men's faces watching from right (Lord Russell, Thomas Spring Rice, Sir John Cam Hobhouse, Lords Cottenham, Duncannon, and Glenelg); a sheep with a black face standing at far right, turning its back to the group (Lord Brougham). 5 February 1838
Lithograph
- Production date
- 1838
- Dimensions
-
Height: 275 millimetres
-
Width: 389 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Text from 'An Illustrative Key to the Political Sketches of H.B.', London 1841:
COSSET. A lamb, &c. brought up by hand. - Bailey's Dict.
The Royal Shepherdess (Queen Victoria) offering food to her pet-lamb is a beautiful representation of rural simplicity. The V. and crown, which are not to be seen on any other of the animals, and the smallness of the Shepherdess's basket, would shew, plainly enough, that there is but 'one Cosset', if the fact were not corroborated by the longing looks of the other six white sheep who bear respectively the likenesses of Lord John Russell (beginning on the left-hand), Mr. Spring Rice, Sir John Hobhouse, Lord Cottenham (in the back-ground), Lord Duncannon, and Lord Glenelg, whose proverbial indolence is signified by his recumbent position. The black-faced wether, turning his tail towards the party, is Lord Brougham, who characteristically explains his own exclusion from royal favour by a compliment to his own sincerity. The words, "my tongue is not hung to courtly airs; I can't gloze," were reported to have been uttered by him in the course of a debate in which he taunted the "Cosset" with being too great a courtier. (See No. DIX.)
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.11833