print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.7139
- Title
- Object: The Corsican beggar rideing to the devil
- Description
-
Napoleon gallops on a white horse towards the jaws of Hell, represented (traditionally) by flames and smoke issuing from the fanged and gaping mouth of a monster (left). He flourishes a whip, saying, "Sure they will make me Emperor". He is not caricatured, but has the customary enormous cocked hat and sabre. In the flames are two demons, nude, with webbed wings, horns, hoofs, and talons; one stands, saying, "He is sure to come we will finish your Ambition"; the other flies in front of the horse's head, saying: "Shew him In". Behind the horse (right) is a signpost with two arms; one points 'To the Devil'; the other, 'To Ho\nor', points to the right but is broken.
In the foreground (left) John Bull, a fat countryman in a smock, and pat a sturdy peasant, talk together, each holding a bludgeon and Pat with a sack of Potaties on his shoulder. Pat says: "Hey Johney Who's that"; John answers: "Tis Boney going Post brother Pat." On the right is a group of four ragged peasants with an ass, evidently French. They say, respectively: "I am glad he's gone"; "I said so if once you set him on Horseback"; "Good bye Boney no doubt you'll have a warm reception"; "after all his promises". A Gallic cock on a mound crows: "this is nothing new." 15 June 1803
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1803
- Dimensions
-
Height: 248 millimetres
-
Width: 348 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VIII, 1947)
For anticipations of the Empire see BMSat 9968, &c. For England and Ireland see BMSat 10009, &c.
Broadley, i. 176.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.7139
