print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.12010
- Title
-
Object: Vingt-un versus fives!
-
Series: Political Sketches
- Description
-
No. 680. A group of men seated around a table at right, playing Vingt-un (Lord Stanley, Sir Henry Hardinge, Sir James Graham, Sir Robert Peel, Henry Goulbourn), inviting two men approaching the table arm-in-arm from left to join in (holding his hat in his right hand, Charles Wood, and holding a walking stick in his left hand, Lord Howick); they are followed by two men, pressing them to try another game of Fives (at far left, Lord Russell, in front of him Lord Morpeth); a man standing sulkily by at right (Daniel O'Connell). 5 May 1841
Lithograph
- Production date
- 1841
- Dimensions
-
Height: 271 millimetres
-
Width: 357 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- For preliminary drawing see 1882,1209.498
Identifications are taken from the "Illustrative Key ..." of 1844, but 'A Key to the Political Sketches of H.B. Nos.601-700' (undated) identifies the person seated next to Lord Stanley as Mr Wakley.
Text from 'An Illustrative Key to the Political Sketches of H.B.', London 1844:
Lord Howick (as explained in various preceding sketches), being separated from the Ministry, and acting towards them an incomprehensible part of alternate friendship and hostility, had obtained a majority of five against them on the 6th May, 1839, and now by an amendment to the Ministerial Irish Registration Bill put them into the much more formidable minority of twenty-one. His Lordship leading by the arm his fidus Achates, Mr. Charles Wood, turns his back on his old associates to accept the invitation of Sir Robert Peel to join him and his friends Sir James Graham (who faces Sir Robert Peel), Sir Henry Hardinge (sitting next on the left), and Lord Stanley, in a game of Vingt-un, the number of the majority on the question above referred to. Lord Morpeth, with his hat in hand, and with the air of humble solicitation, endeavours to recall him to a game of Fives, an allusion to the smaller majority on a previous occasion, which happily coincides with the title of a pastime in which the scions of some aristocratic stocks are known to recreate themselves in the neighbourhood of the Haymarket. Lord John Russell, as the Leader of the House of Commons and the head of his party in that House expresses his concern for the loss of two personages of such high standing as Lord Howick and Mr. Wood. Behind Sir Robert Peel appears the figure of Mr. Goulburn, also engaged in the same round game - a game, however, not by any means suited to the purposes of Mr. O'Connell, whose burly figure completes the group on the right hand, and who thinks "Pope Joan" the only game worth playing at - certainly if the amount of the contributions which he has received from the Catholics of Ireland be considered, Mr. O'Connell has been a winner by his favorite game, to a pretty wide extent.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.12010
