print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.7653
- Title
- Object: The corsican nurse soothing the Infants of Spain.
- Description
-
Napoleon sits on a stool or low-backed hair holding the two younger sons of the King of Spain, dressed as infants in long robes, one on each knee. His legs are wide astride, and with his jackboots he rocks two large wicker cradles on the left and r. Both are inscribed 'Imperial Cradle'; on the r. sleep the King and Queen, the latter wearing a nieht-cap, and with her back to her husband. The head of the cradle is inscribed 'The Good Old King and his Amiable Consort.' On the left. Ferdinand, a burly infant, sleeps in the cradle inscribed 'Prince of Austurias' [sic]. Napoleon wears a large feathered bicorne, and looks down with a twisted cynical expression at the children on his knee, both fast asleep with expressionless faces. A collar is padlocked round each neck, inscribed 'Antonio and Carlos'. He says: "Hush a bye - Hush a bye - you shall have your crowns again - but I dont know when!" 12 July 1808.
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1808
- Dimensions
-
Height: 243 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 Napoleon and the Spanish Bourbons see BMSat 10990, &c. The two 'infants' are the infante Don Carlos (b. 1788) and his younger brother, the infante Don Francisco, who shared the fate of their brother Ferdinand; the same Anglo-Spanish pun is used in BMSat 10996.
Grego, 'Rowlandson', ii. 94 f. Broadley, i. 271. Van Stolk, No. 6110.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1808
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.7653
