print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.4584
- Title
- Object: An extraordinary gazette, or the disapointed politicians.
- Description
-
A number of men sit and stand round a table in some coffee-house or club, smoking, reading, and drinking. A man in spectacles reads in the "Gazette" a dispatch signed "Clin[ton]"; another looks over his shoulder with an expression of satisfaction. A military officer tears a paper to pieces in disgust, on it is a row of ciphers. On the edge of the table is a paper inscribed "Gazzette extroy 1710. We have gain'd a battle & hav[e] the French General in my coach. Marlborough". (Apparently an allusion to Blenheim 1704.)
On the wall (l.) is a large map: "Map of America belonging to the English in 1762 when Pitt was prime minister". In the centre is "A Map of America belonging to the English in 1778"; only a fragment in the north is left, filled with writhing serpents. On the right. is a picture, "The Mountain in Labour"; from the bottom of a mound a mouse emerges, crowds of men throw up their arms making gestures of astonishment. Under the map of America in 1778 is a playbill: "At the Theatre Royal St James'es. A Play of All in the Wrong, Obstant by Mr King. . . . which will be [followed by] a Farce of the sobject[ion] ... America". 1778
Etching with partial mezzotint
- Production date
- 1778 (?)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 122 millimetres
-
Width: 153 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', V, 1935)
This appears to represent the 'Gazette Extraordinary' of 24 Aug. 1778 which contained Clinton's dispatch of 6 July, relating his encounter with Washington and Lafayette on 28 June at Freehold or Monmouth on the retreat after his evacuation of Philadelphia. Both Clinton and the Americans represented the affair as a victory, see 'Gazette', loc. cit., and 'Ann. Reg.' 1778, p. 225*. 'All in the Wrong' was a popular comedy by Murphy, first played in 1761; Thomas King the actor (1730-1805) was in 1778 at the height of his fame, though here George III is clearly indicated.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.4584
