- Museum number
- 1868,0808.12757
- Title
- Object: Theatrical Faux Pas- | Satirist March 1st 1814.
- Description
-
Plate from the 'Satirist', xiv (n.S., iv). Mrs. H. Johnston, dressed as a tragedy queen, rushes towards a street-door (left), her hand on the knocker, a ring in the mouth of a head which grins down at her, saying, "Come live with me & be my Love." She says: "I must pledge my Love to support the pledges of my Love." Over the door: 'Drummond—Pawn Broker— NB Old Pieces taken in', with the sign of three balls. Above the door is the lower part of an open window, showing a heap of money-bags. Behind the lady is the façade of Covent Garden Theatre, with the manager, Harris, tall and grotesquely thin, standing above the pediment, looking towards his fleeing mistress; he says: "Ah Whither my love Ah Whither Art thou gone [cf. No. 9311]." On the right, and forming the greater part of the design, stand members of the Covent Garden company; they are in front of a rustic (theatrical) grotto surrounded with leaves and inscribed 'Covent Garden Green House'. They are (left to right) Catherine Stephens (1794-1882), vocalist and actress, afterwards Countess of Essex; she says: "What company has my inexperience got into." Next stands Mathews, wearing the broad-brimmed hat and long overcoat with capes of the amateur coachman, as in his part of Cypher in 'Hit or Miss', see No. 11700. He holds a team-whip and says: "Bang up & prime." Next is Fawcett dressed as Servitz in F. Reynolds's 'melodramatic opera' 'The Exile', see No. 11209. He turns from Mrs. Johnston, saying, "Going to Gallivant— D—d bad management." Facing him in profile stands Incledon as a handsome sailor; he holds his hat, saying: "He had better marry a widow, better marry than burn." Next, Sally Booth (1793-1867), a demure-looking ingénue, says: "I wonder for my part how women can do such things." Emery, as a yokel in smock and gaiters, holds his hat and a whip; he says: "No such doings in Yorkshire." The diminutive Mrs. Liston, as Queen Dollalolla in Fielding's 'Tom Thumb', see No. 10680, stands beside her husband who wears a long wig, three-cornered hat, laced coat, and flapped waistcoat. He stands on tiptoe to stare at Mrs. Johnston, and registers astonishment; he says: "Oh, Shocking!!" Mrs. Liston rejoins: "Monstrous."
1 March 1814
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1814
- Dimensions
-
Height: 205 millimetres
-
Width: 365 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', IX, 1949)
Mrs. Johnston, née Parker, b. 1782, long separated from her husband Henry Erskine Johnston, is satirized for her desertion of Harris for Drummond, the London banker. Emery, noted for his rustics, is evidently copied from his portrait after de Wilde, in the part of Stephen Harrowby in Colman's 'Poor Gentleman', 1802 (Burney Coll.). There is a companion portrait of Fawcett as Servitz, wearing short furred coat, three-cornered hat, and knee-breeches as in this print, but Cruikshank seems to have copied his own print, see No. 11209. Incledon is closely copied from a drawing by Emery (the actor), etched and published by Roberts, the only alteration being that the hat has been transferred from the left to the right hand.
Reid, No. 292. Cohn, No. 724.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.12757
