- Museum number
- 1868,0808.4334
- Title
- Object: An Exact representation of a certain wise Body without a Head in the East going to pay a Visit to a certain great Body in the West
- Description
-
Satire on those members of the Corporation of London who supported the Peace of Paris and their presentation of an address at St. James's Palace on 12 May 1763. A number of aldermen in procession along Fleet Street wear jack boots to show their allegiance to Lord Bute and carry emblems of their professions; they are caricatured, several with animal heads; some of their mounts are also presented grotesquely. Groups of people observe and comment, most of them in supposedly eastern dress to emphasise the fact that the procession is moving westwards towards St James's. At the front (to right) Sir Charles Asgill, the banker (in place of the Lord Mayor, William Beckford) carries a pole with money bags and is attended by a zany who holds a parasol over his head to "screen him from the rage of the Populace"; a bystander remarks, punningly, "'Tis money makes the Mare to go", and a small boy urges his dog to attack. Next come, Sir Robert Alsop, a Scottish hosier, with a thistle on his head, carrying a pole with gloves, stockings and ribbons, beside Sir Thomas Rawlinson, with a tea-chest, coffee-canister and sugar loaf on a pole, and another sugar loaf for a hat; they ride on mules. Next are Marshe Dickinson, a lawyer with the head of a fox, carrying a pole with a writing desk and legal documents, riding with Sir Henry Bankes, grocer and oilman, with jars, bottles and two dried fish on his pole. Next ride, Sir Samuel Fludyer, clothier, mounted on a ram and carrying bales and rolls of cloth on his pole, and Sir Francis Gosling, banker, with the head of a goose, carrying a volume of "Mother Goose's Tales" on his pole. Next, Richard Blunt, distiller, with a funnel on his head carrying a still, bottle and barrel on his pole, and Sir James Eyre, with a judge's wig and wolf's head, carrying a portcullis and noose. Next, Sir Thomas Challoner, sheriff, with a dog's head carrying a gallows from which is suspended a corpse, and Sir Thomas Harrison, the City Chamberlain, carrying a urinal and chamber pot. The final figure is Sir James Hodges, stationer of London Bridge and Town Clerk, wearing a fool's cap, his horse with a horn book attached to its poll, and books and broadsides attached to his pole. 1763
Etching and engraving
- Production date
- 1763 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 202 millimetres (image)
-
Height: 255 millimetres (trimmed?)
-
Width: 382 millimetres (image)
-
Width: 396 millimetres (trimmed?)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The print is attributed to O'Neale on stylistic grounds, in particular the manner of drawing horses and the lively dog in the foreground; figures wearing trailing drapery echo his painting of classical and oriental figures, often in puce, on Chelsea porcelain (see S. Hanscombe, Jefferyes Hamett O'Neale, 2010)
Stephens identifies those portrayed according to a description of the event in the Public Advertiser, 13 May 1763: "Yesterday Sir Charles Asgill in the City State Coach, attended by the following aldermen and city officers, viz., Robert Alsop, Esq., Sir Thomas Rawlinson, Marshe Dickinson, Esq., Sir Richard Glyn, Sir Samuel Fludyer, Sir Francis Gosling and the Recorder with him, Richard Blunt, Esq., Sir Thomas Challoner and Sir Henry Bankes, Sir Thomas Harrison, Chamberlain, Sir James Hodges, Town Clerk, went in procession from Guildhall to St James's." The procession is mentioned in Churchill's poem, The Ghost. Beckford, the lord mayor who opposed the Peace, is notably absent.
The London crowd use two archaic slang terms meaning to observe: "smoak" and "twig"
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.4334