print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.7099
- Title
- Object: An attempt to undermine John Bull, or working through the globe.
- Description
-
Napoleon, not caricatured but wearing a huge cocked hat, stands within a circle representing the globe, plying a pickaxe, with which he enlarges a rocky cavity. One foot rests on 'Ruins' [twice] the other on 'Switzerland'; around him are rocks which he has undermined: (left) 'Batavian Republic' [see BMSat 9989], 'Italian Republique', and (right) 'Territories Pick-Axed with Impunity.' On ground at the north pole is territory surrounded by a low cliff inscribed 'Great Britain'; on this lies John Bull, a civilian, but wearing a small cocked hat and holding a sabre. Bonaparte looks up, saying: "O the Pick-Axe is infinitely the best way - I soon shall be at the little fellow - that's his abode - I know it by the white Cliffs." John, with his ear to the ground, says with a smile: "I hear you - burrowing away - my fine fellow, but it won't do, - as soon as you pop your head above the surface, you shall be saluted with a few of John Bull's pop guns." c. April 1803
Etching
- Production date
- 1803
- Dimensions
-
Height: 337 millimetres
-
Width: 249 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VIII, 1947)
See BMSat 9977, &c. A satire on Bonaparte's conquests of peace, after the Treaty of Amiens, see BMSat 9898, &c. Napoleon's intervention in Switzerland (Oct. 1802) roused especial indignation. Hawkesbury told Otto: 'The march of your troops will be regarded by the majority of the British nation, and consequently by its ministry, as an act of hostility.' (Dispatch to Talleyrand, 8 Oct., quoted Deutsch, 'Genesis of Napoleonic Imperialism', 1938, p. 80.) For the approach of war see BMSat 9972, &c
Broadley, i. 161.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.7099
