print;
broadside;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.3554
- Title
- Object: The Downfall of Sejanus
- Description
-
Satirical broadside on Robert Walpole and the Excise Crisis, comparing him with Sejanus and the de Wit brothers. A street scene with an executioner, saying "This is the fate of all Oppressors", dragging the headless body of Walpole whose head lies at the feet of another executioner holding up an axe who says, "Thus I've sever'd ye Head which contrive'd so much Ill, To prevent fresh Occasions to bring in the B[ill]"; to right, a procession of weeping excisemen in funeral dress and carrying sextants and other measuring instruments; in the background a group of women are about to burn the body, saying "We shall use him to[o] well do the worst that we can/For he has Nothing about him worth ye name of a man". Four lines of verse at the foot of the image refereing to the fate of the de Wits, and verses below in two columns referring to Walpole. 1733
Etching
- Production date
- 1733
- Dimensions
-
Height: 366 millimetres (printed area)
-
Width: 306 millimetres (printed area)
- Curator's comments
- The de Witt brothers were brutally publicly executed in The Hague on 20 August 1672.
The title refers to Lucius Aelius Sejanus, executed AD31, who was a favourite and would-be usurper of Emperor Tiberius. He was made famous in Britain by Ben Jonson's tragedy "Sejanus his fall" (1605) and is often used as exemplar of a failed tyrant.
- Location
- Not on display
- Associated events
- Associated Event: Excise Crisis 1733
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.3554
