print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1935,0522.12.61
- Title
- Object: Delivering a Prophetess.
- Description
-
Plate to the 'Scourge', viii, before p. 321. A. bedroom scene. Joanna Southcott sits in an arm-chair, attended by three women and four doctors. Between her legs is a large tub inscribed 'Living Water', into which water gushes from a tap projecting from under her petticoats. She leans back with extended arms, exclaiming: "Shiloh! let not this groupe dismay thee | Come forth into the World I pray thee!" One doctor, Reece, superintends the flow of water, kneeling in profile to the left on a large volume: '[R]eec's Medical Guide'. In his pocket is a paper: 'Account of Wonderful Pregnancies'. Behind him a second doctor sniffs at a tumbler of water, saying, "This is a very pretty rig! | Nothing but water d .... n my Wig!" Two others talk together on the right, one peers through a microscope into a goblet; the other asks: "What do you see in the water, Doctor!" He answers: "Bubbles Doctr "the earth hath bubbles, as the water hath ['Macbeth' I. iii]". I said it was all my eye." Behind him, on the chimney-piece, are a medicine-bottle and the bust of a lank-haired man wearing clerical bands. Three women stand behind Joanna's chair and in front of the curtains of a bed. One (left) holds out a lace cap, saying, "Doctor here is Shiloh's cap! bless me! why he has got a watery head! The next says: "Pray Doctr take care of the cawl if there is one." The third, offering a steaming bowl, says: "Come my blessed Lady sip some of this heavenly caudle I have made you." In the foreground (left), Tozer, dressed as an artisan, sits on a three-legged stool, corking up bottles of water. He is identified by a paper hanging from his pocket: 'Tozer Preacher to the Virgin Johanna'. In front of him are a basket of corks and a paper: 'Sermon on the Birth of Shiloh', Corked bottles are on the left, uncorked ones on the right.
1 November 1814
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1814
- Dimensions
-
Height: 246 millimetres
-
Width: 351 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', IX, 1949)
See No. 12329, &c. Dr. Reece, see No. 12330, published 'The Medical Guide, for the use of the Clergy, Heads of Families, and Practitioners in Medecine and Surgery', 1802, 17th ed., 1850.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1935
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1935,0522.12.61
