print
- Museum number
- 1877,1013.833
- Description
-
Satire on the country theatre with a performance of Hamlet on a makeshift stage in a barn; two actors, playing Hamlet and Laertes, approach each other, one with sword drawn, "Queen Gertrude" stands behind wearing ragged finery; the backcloth is painted with a scene of knights in armour fighting Turkish soldiers. An uncouth audience clusters around the stage; among their number is a poor fiddler who turns away from the stage, a mouse is drinking from his tankard, and a well dressed young boy, eating an apple and pointing excitedly at the actor on the left. The squire, who is asleep, and his lady sit in upholstered chairs in the foreground, a mouse runs under her skirt; a scowling woman wearing a necklace, perhaps the tavern landlady, stands to left with her right hand in her pocket.
Etching
- Production date
- 1770s
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The somewhat two-dimensional, highly patterned style is typical of Mansergh; Stephens describes the print as "very carefully but not skilfully wrought"
- Location
- Not on display
- Associated titles
Associated Title: Hamlet
- Acquisition date
- 1877
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1877,1013.833