Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Canvassing for votes / painted by W. Hogarth ; engrav'd by C. Grignion.

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Charles Grignion
1721-1810

Canvassing for votes / painted by W. Hogarth ; engrav'd by C. Grignion.

Published

[London] : Published 20th. Febry. 1757 As the Act directs, [1757]

engraving
image: 15 3/4 x 21 1/16 inches (400 x 535 mm); sheet: 17 1/16 x 21 7/8 inches (434 x 556 mm)
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 1225
Notes
With the words "Plate II" following caption title.
Dedication below image: To His Excellency Sr. Charles Hanbury Williams Embassador to the Court of Russia. This Plate is most humbly Inscrib'd By his most Obedient humble Servant. Willm. Hogarth.
The second state of this plate, with the teeth removed from the figure of the lion at right. Cf. BM catalog entry.
Library's copy trimmed within plate mark.
Provenance

Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.

Summary

A rural scene with three inns: "The Portobello" (celebrating the naval victory of 1739 in contrast with the recent loss of Minorca), outside which two veterans sit reminiscing; "The Excise Office" (the Whig stronghold, its name alluding to Walpole's Excise Bill of 1733) with the sign of the Crown and a rioting crowd; and "The Royal Oak" (recalling Tory support for the Stuart monarchy), its sign partly obscured by the banner of "Punch Candidate for Guzzledown" in which the Treasury is being emptied of money that the candidate throws at voters; in the centre, a young country gentleman is being bribed by agents of both parties, while, to right, a portly candidate buys trinkets from a Jewish pedlar for two young ladies on the balcony of "The Royal Oak"; the landlady counts her bribe under the watchful eye of a soldier while she leans against a carved British lion about to devour the fleur-de-lis of France.

Associated names
Hogarth, William, 1697-1764, artist.
Peel, Robert, 1788-1850, former owner.
Classification
Department