print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.6578
- Title
- Object: Old silky.
- Description
-
Printed in reverse (the inscriptions from right to left). A young woman (left) wearing a hat, a tattered dress and shoes, stands looking down in profile to the right, holding an infant; one breast is uncovered. A middle-aged man, holding gloves and a cane, leans towards her, as if inspecting the infant, whose back is towards him. He puts his left hand in his coat-pocket. Behind is the façade of an irregular two-storied building, 'Saint George's Spa' in large letters extends along the parapet. Behind (right) are the tops of trees. In front (left) is a pump. Beneath the title:
'Cheer up Dear Bud! thy Tears Dispel,
You'r Handsome, and may yet do Well.'
A counterproof. 12 December 1796
Etching
- Production date
- 1796
- Dimensions
-
Height: 279 millimetres
-
Width: 179 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VII, 1942)
A view of the notorious Dog and Duck tea-garden in St. George's Fields which had lost its licence in 1787. Wroth, 'London Pleasure Gardens', 1896, pp. 271-7. Silky is the unscrupulous usurer in Holcroft's 'Road to Ruin', cf. BMSat 8073
(Supplementary information)
This has a pair in 'Old Sulky' (Laurie & Whittle Quarto Drolls no.176, not in BMSat: see 1948,0214.401)
Dafydd Rhys Jones notes (personal communication, January 2012) that although the Dog and Duck tea-garden did briefly lose its licence in 1787 (General Evening Post, September 11th, 1787), the landlord appealed to the Lord Mayor (London Chronicle, September 20th, 1787) and regained the licence, and in 1788 the licence was granted again (London Chronicle, August 30th, 1788). There is not a 'final end to its existence' as a disreputable drinking establishment until September 1794 (Oracle and Public Advertiser, September 13th ,1794).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.6578