print;
satirical print;
broadside
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.3526
- Title
- Object: The Opera House or the Italian Eunuch's Glory
- Description
-
Satire on foreign opera singers based on "The Beggar's Opera Burlesqued" (BMSat 1807); animal-headed singers portraying the principal characters are shown on an outdoor stage with musicians and audience in the foreground; beyond, to left, theatre boxes with an audience of ladies and below a wall hung with ballads against which two men urinate and defecate; to right, a conventional stage scene; an angel carrying a ribbon lettered "Harmony" flies off at top right. On either side hang scrolls listing the presents given to Farinelli, copied from Hogarth's Rake's progress, Plate 2; ten lines of verse below. 1735
Etching
- Production date
- 1735
- Dimensions
-
Height: 250 millimetres
-
Width: 289 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The imagery of BM Satires 1807 satirising Gay's Beggar's Opera has been transposed, ironically, into a satire on Italian opera.
The use of the list from "A Rake's Progress" suggests a date of 1735 for this copy.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2017-2018 30 Sep-25 Feb, London, V&A, Opera: City
- Associated titles
Associated Title: The Beggar's Opera
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.3526
