print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.12803
- Title
- Object: The Imposter, or Obstetric Dispute,
- Description
-
A scene outside Bethlehem Hospital (Bedlam). Joanna Southcott, grotesquely pregnant, bestrides a dog wearing clerical gown and bands, its collar inscribed 'Tozer'. She and the dog advance menacingly towards a preaching boot-maker (left), who rants, standing on a stool. The dog barks savagely: "Bow woo woo"; she flourishes a broom and an open book: 'The Propheci[es] of Johanna Southcote', saying, "Begone Satan, or I shall Lay Thee." She is pushed forward by a dwarfish and hideous artisan, who has a pair of large snuffers thrust through his ragged coat. The bootmaker yells with outspread arms: "I say, your prophecies are d—d lies & Old Touzler the father of 'em I'll expose you I will you Old Brimstone you're a Cheat!—& a faggot! & a bag of Deceit! Out upon you! out upon you! you Blasphemous old Hag." A pair of Hessian boots dangles from his waist; he wears misshapen boots of similar type; a hammer is thrust through the belt of his leather apron, and he wears clerical bands and wide-brimmed hat. A little chimney-sweep cheers on the dog: "Well done Tozer." A grinning bystander shouts "well done Boots! close in upon her." A crowd of grinning spectators is freely sketched. On the extreme right three doctors stand in consultation, alarmed for their professional reputations. One, probably Reece, holding his cane to his face, says: "I'll pledge my reputation on her being so." Another, holding behind his back a bag of obstetrical instruments, says: "I think 'tis a cancer." He is Dr. John Sims, 'an accoucheur of great eminence'. The third asks: "Have you touch'd her Doctor." A fashionably dressed man watches them through an eye-glass, saying, "What crotchet have the Doctors got now!!!?" In the background is the façade of the rebuilt hospital, inscribed 'New Bethlehem 1814'. After the title: 'Vide—Johanna Southcote—and the Public Disputations—'.
Plate numbered 338.
September 1814.
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1814
- Dimensions
-
Height: 245 millimetres
-
Width: 350 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', IX, 1949)
During the growing excitement caused by the expectation of the birth of Shiloh, see No. 12329, &c., one Colston, a boot-closer, placed himself for several Sundays in a chair facing Tozer's chapel, challenged Tozer to formal controversy, and attacked the prophetess. 'Impartial Account of . . . Joanna Southcott', Leeds, 1814, p. 49. The chapel was in Duke Street, St. George's Fields (Surrey); the scene is here laid in Moorfields (now Finsbury Square), as the traditional place for open-air preaching, and for its vicinity to Bedlam, cf. No. 2432 (1739).
Reid, No. 362. Cohn, No. 1228.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.12803
