Accession number
PML 144634, fol. 7r
Creator
Cruikshank, George, 1792-1878.
Published
London : Pubd Feby 1814 by T. Tegg 111 Cheapside, [1814]
Credit line
Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987.
Notes
Plate numbered 312 at upper right.
Library's copy closely trimmed with loss of plate number and plate mark.
Library's copy closely trimmed with loss of plate number and plate mark.
Description
1 print : etching, hand colored ; image: 138 x 212 mm; sheet: 146 x 214 mm
Provenance
From the library of Gordon N. Ray.
Summary
Print shows a frost fair on the frozen Thames just above London Bridge, which forms a background, with coaches passing and spectators looking down. In the foreground (right) a jovial waterman straddles behind his ninepins at which an artisan is about to throw. Men and women drink and fight in an open tent inscribed 'Shannon', where a large pot cooks on a brazier. A man's wooden leg plunges through the ice; a fat woman falls on her back on breaking ice, dragging down a man by his pigtail and terrifying and tripping up a fiddler and a raffish man in a furred and braided overcoat with a flamboyant top-hat. Customers (left) buy souvenirs from a printer who inks a block: behind is a press placarded 'The Thames Printing Office--Copper Plate printg done in the Best Style by J water--Wagtail & Co.' There are two makeshift tents on the left: one placarded 'Gin and Gingerbread Sold here Wholesale'; the other: 'The Nelson'. In the middle distance revellers drink or dance, and a woman at a stall cries "Here's my smoking Hot sasengers a penney a peic."
Classification
Catalog link
Department