- Museum number
- 1868,0808.5211
- Title
- Object: The Westminster Canvass
- Description
-
Fox, as Guy Vaux (Fawkes) on 5 Nov., is carried (left to right) in a chair resting on two poles by Hall, the apothecary, and Sam House, two of his prominent supporters in Westminster. Fox, who is smiling, holds in his right hand a dark lantern inscribed 'Amor Patriae', in the left a bundle of matches labelled 'For the new Parliament'. Hall (right), in profile to the right wearing spectacles, in place of a hat has a pestle and mortar inscribed 'All Apothecary Drugs prepared'. Sam is in his usual dress (see BMSat 5696) with open shirt and ungartered stockings, but wearing a hat in which is a large fox's brush and a favour inscribed 'Vaux'. Beneath the design is etched in three columns on a scroll:
'Electors know no reason why
They should not vote for Carlo Guy
Says, barnacled Doctor Capsicum
And Sam, the patriotic Scum,
So, (as boys, you may remember,
Parade the streets in November,)
From door to door in doleful ditty
Beg he may represent the City,
Declare Parliament he'll reform,
And other mighty deeds perform,
Deeds, which in place he quite forgot
But now he'll do them piping hot.' 31 March 1784
Etching
- Production date
- 1784
- Dimensions
-
Height: 248 millimetres
-
Width: 338 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VI, 1938)
A satire on the Westminster election, see BMSat 6471, &c. For the beginning of Fox's canvass see BMSat 6479, 6480. He published an advertisement dated 30 Mar., thanking the electors 'for the very flattering and generous assurances of support he has received on his canvass', and apologizing to others. 'Morning Post', 31 Mar.; 'Hist. West. Election', p. 132; and BMSat 6479. One of the few references to parliamentary reform in pictorial satire during this decade, cf. BMSat 5638, 5657, &c. (1780), 6575, 7480. For Fox as Guy Vaux see BMSat 6389, &c.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2001 Mar-Aug, London, Soane Museum, Hogarth's Election Entertainment
2001/2 Oct- Jan, Newcastle, Laing Gallery, Hogarth's Election Entertainment
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.5211
