print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1935,0522.10.62
- Title
- Object: Rainy weather, or the battle of the umbrellas.!
- Description
-
The pavement recedes in perspective from left to right, with the window of Sidebotham's shop as a background. Pedestrians with umbrellas, all with sharply pointed ferrules, are colliding to their mutual damage. A tall Life-Guards officer with a high plumed helmet walks (right to left) holding up an elegant pagoda-shaped umbrella with a tasselled handle. A very short gaily dressed and umbrella-less woman stands on tip-toe, with raised arm, hailing a hackney coach. A dandy uses his umbrella to hook off the bonnet of a pretty young woman, who distractedly pokes the ferrule of hers into the eye of a hussar officer. A porter carrying a large package on his knot collides with a dandy, forcing the latter's umbrella against the hat and umbrella of a dandy. A little boy wears an old umbrella cover as a cape; a child on pattens is eclipsed by an enormous umbrella. There are other incidents.
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1819 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 246 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', IX, 1949)
Each pane of a large window is filled with a print, as in earlier print-shop plates, see (e.g.) Nos. 5220, 11100; one pane is being broken by an umbrella. The prints are slightly sketched, but indicate actual publications. Two can be identified: Nos. 13008, 13043 [n.b. this last does not seem to be correct]. There is also a velocipede print, see No. 13399, showing that the date is not earlier than 1819. Above the window: 'Sidebethem Printseller and Publisher'. Above the door: '287'; above the window on the right of the door: 'Literary Chronicle Office'.
(Supplementary information)
Dated by M. D. George, 1819.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1935
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1935,0522.10.62
