- Museum number
- 1868,0808.8170
- Title
- Object: Preparation for the Humbug.
- Description
-
A bedroom scene. Joanna Southcott, fully dressed and rather meretricious-looking, sits on the knee of a man in clerical dress, who kneels on one knee in profile to the left whispering in her ear: "Haste my Love to Bed or the Doctor will awake" Mind you Scream Lustily." She holds a pair of spectacles and answers: "Leave all within to me haste you and Sound the News abroad Never fear I've given the Old Doctor a rare dose." On the left is an ornate four-poster bed with a fringed canopy round which serpents twine symmetrically, supporting drapery. In the foreground, at the foot of the bed, two women are placing an infant in a warming-pan (traditional device for a supposititious child, cf. Nos. 7565, 12700); a basket shows how the child has been introduced. A young woman, wearing a hat, takes up the child; she says: "Indeed I will warrant it a Virgins Child." The elder woman, who holds the pan, says: "Hush!—No noise dont let it cry." An elderly doctor, with a gold-headed cane, sits asleep in profile to the right with his back to the bed. Beside him, and extending across the room, is an ornate gilt table decorated with a crocodile and supported on a winged Sphinx with a scaly tail. On it, by the doctor, are decanter, glass, forceps, &c. At the other end (right) is a lighted candle in a tall candlestick, surrounded by a red circle (see No. 12329). By this lies a large seal with the initials 'I.C' and two stars. On the bolster of the bed is an embroidered cover: the letters 'J.S' surrounded by rays. At the head of the bed a ram is depicted with the inscription 'Oh Tempore Oh Mores'. A wall-clock shows that the time is 11.50; on it stands a crowing cock: "Cock a doodle do." A crudely drawn print.
Plate numbered 4.
c. August 1814
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1814
- Dimensions
-
Height: 251 millimetres
-
Width: 353 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', IX, 1949)
A satire on the expected accouchement, see No. 12329, &c., for which a 'large furnished house' had been taken. The man in clerical dress is probably William Tozer, her faithful preacher. The doctor is probably Richard Reece (1775-1831), who was consulted by Joanna as to the possibility of her supernatural pregnancy and gave a non-committal answer, see No. 12335. Of nine medical men consulted, six are reported to have said that the (dropsical) symptoms would have indicated pregnancy in a younger woman. The elder woman may be Mrs. Ann Underwood, her 'secretary and particular friend', the other Miss Jane Townley, with both of whom she lived in seclusion from Oct. 1813. The seal is that used in 'sealing' the faithful; it was picked up in 1790 by Joanna when sweeping a shop, and was the starting-point of her career as a prophetess; the letters, at first I.S., were 'miraculously changed to I.C. with the addition of two stars'. Joanna, believed by herself and her followers to be immortal, died 27 Dec. 1814.
(For description see other impression)
See Frances Carey (ed), 'The Apocalypse and the shape of things to come', BM 2000 p.249 cat.22.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1999/2000 Dec-Apr, London, BM, 'The Apocalypse', no.22
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.8170
