Accession number
PML 9313.13
Creator
Vertue, James, etcher.
Published
[London] : Sold att the grocers Shop the corner of Oxindon Street in Coventry Street up one payr of stairs Pickadilly, [1726]
Credit line
Purchased in the Toovey collection, 1899.
Notes
Caption title.
Etching attributed to James Vertue after George Vertue by Stephens.
First state, before key letters and violin added, with falsified publication line pasted just below the image: "Sold att the grocers Shop the corner of Oxindon Street in Coventry Street up one payr of stairs Pickadilly"; the publication line probably falsified so as to suggest to collectors that this was another state (cf. BM online catalog, item 1874,0808.2028).
Lettered below the image with the title, with sixteen lines of verse in two sections: "The Surrey Rabbet-Breeder here behold ... 'T'is hop'd will bring forth Pillory and Ears".
Library's copy closely trimmed within plate mark.
Library's copy forms part of a bound volume (PML 9313) of collected materials pertaining to the notorious case of "rabbit woman" Mary Toft of Godalming; the contents dated 1726-ca. 1819, and including: 11 printed tracts and specimens of satirical verse and prose, 8 prints, 1 pen and ink portrait of Mary Toft by G.P. Harding, and an original manuscript transcription of the "Predictions of William Whiston". All individual items forming the volume have been cataloged separately.
Etching attributed to James Vertue after George Vertue by Stephens.
First state, before key letters and violin added, with falsified publication line pasted just below the image: "Sold att the grocers Shop the corner of Oxindon Street in Coventry Street up one payr of stairs Pickadilly"; the publication line probably falsified so as to suggest to collectors that this was another state (cf. BM online catalog, item 1874,0808.2028).
Lettered below the image with the title, with sixteen lines of verse in two sections: "The Surrey Rabbet-Breeder here behold ... 'T'is hop'd will bring forth Pillory and Ears".
Library's copy closely trimmed within plate mark.
Library's copy forms part of a bound volume (PML 9313) of collected materials pertaining to the notorious case of "rabbit woman" Mary Toft of Godalming; the contents dated 1726-ca. 1819, and including: 11 printed tracts and specimens of satirical verse and prose, 8 prints, 1 pen and ink portrait of Mary Toft by G.P. Harding, and an original manuscript transcription of the "Predictions of William Whiston". All individual items forming the volume have been cataloged separately.
Description
1 print : etching ; image: 161 x 200 mm; sheet: 204 x 215 mm
Provenance
From the libraries of George Nassau (sale 16 Feb. 1824); and Thomas Jolley (sale 15 June 1852).
Summary
Satire on Mary Toft, the "rabbit breeder" and those who were duped by her fraud. The interior of a large room, presumably intended as Lacy's bagnio in Leicester Fields, in the centre of which Toft reclines on a chair attended by a doctor, John Howard, while a gentleman identified by Stephens as Nathaniel St André, wearing a hat, has laid down a walking stick and kneels to lift a rabbit that is emerging from below her skirts. On the left, three men enter through an open door, the foremost, evidently John Maubray, holding up a specimen bottle and grasping by the shoulder another doctor, who points towards Toft; another holding a staff aplpears to be a constable. Other men (one perhaps intended as her husband) gather behind Toft's chair; Samuel Molyneux, wearing a hat and holding a walking stick turns away in disgust as a midwife holds up a "new-born" rabbit. On a table in the background lie a hat, ink stand and specimens of Toft's rabbits; the walls are hung with five paintings and a large map of Surrey.
Classification
Catalog link
Department