print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.7679
- Title
- Object: Prophecy explained.
- Description
-
Below the design: "And there are Seven Kings, five are fallen, and 'one' is, and the other is not yet Come, and when he cometh he must continue but a short space. Revelations. Chap. 17 - Verse 10." Napoleon stands at the head of five Kings, seated on the ground, all looking in dismay at Joseph Bonaparte who stands (r.) in Spanish dress, on the slope of a hill. Joseph looks up despairingly, with upraised arms, at the cloud-borne figure of Liberty, who has snatched off his crown. He is 'King Joe, The One that continued but a short space'; she is 'Spanish Liberty seizing the Usurpers-Crown'. She is winged and holds the staff and cap of 'Libertas'. Napoleon is 'King Nap The "One that is"'. He wears a crown and royal mantle over uniform, and holds orb and sceptre. The five kings are 'The five that are fall'n' (l. to r.): 'Wirtemberg, Saxon'y [both terrified], 'Holland' [anxiously despondent], 'Bavaria' [moribund], and 'Prussia' falling back in consternation. Below the five: 'Slough of Disgrace and Ridicule'. Behind Joseph (r.) are conical mountains: 'Pyrennian Mountain'.
17 September 1808.
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1808
- Dimensions
-
Height: 244 millimetres
-
Width: 345 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 Joseph's departure from Madrid see BMSat 11012, &c. For Louis Napoleon of Holland see BMSat 10581. The kings of Würtemberg, Bavaria, and Saxony were vassals of Napoleon, and had received bounties, cf. BMSat 10518; for Prussia after Tilsit see BMSat 10758. Only the exigencies of the quotation restricts their number to five.
Grego, 'Rowlandson', ii. 98. Listed by Broadley.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1808
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.7679
