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.

The Dutch toy

Image not available
Charles Williams
1796-1866

The Dutch toy

Published

London : Pubd June 1st 1814 by W Holland N° 11 Cockspur Street, 1814 June 1.

etching
image: 228 x 313 mm; plate mark: 260 x 336 mm; sheet: 277 x 353 mm
Peel 1975
Notes
Lettered "Pubd June 1st 1814 by W Holland N° 11 Cockspur Street."
Provenance

Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.

Summary

Princess Charlotte (a flattering portrait) stands raising a whip to lash a top spinning on the floor, on which sits in profile to the right a little Dutchman smoking a pipe. He wears the short jacket, bulky breeches, and flower-pot hat of the Dutchman in English caricature, but orange-coloured and with epaulets, and with a paper inscribed 'Contract' in his pocket to show that he is the Prince of Orange. An ermine-lined robe hangs from her shoulders over a décolletée dress. She says: "Take this for Ma! and this for Pa!--and this! and this! for myself, you ugly thing you!--" The door (right) is slightly open, allowing an arm holding a birch-rod tied with orange ribbon and an unmistakable leg to project into the room. The words of the concealed Regent float in on a label: 'If you don't find pleasure in whipping the Top, I shall whip the Bottom!' Against the wall (left) is a square piano with an open music-book, with the words and music of a song: 'An Obstinate Daughter's the plague of you [sic] life / No rest can you take tho your rid of your Wife / At twenty she laughs at the duty you taught her / Oh! what a plague is an obstinate Daughter.' [Sheridan, 'The Duenna'] On the piano is a book, 'School for Wives' [comedy by Hugh Kelly, 1773]. On the wall is a picture of Cupid standing on his head on a terrestrial globe at the point where 'Holland' is marked: he has dropped his bow, arrows fall from his quiver towards 'England'.

Associated names
Holland, William, active 1782-1817, publisher.
Peel, Robert, 1788-1850, former owner.
Classification
Department