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.

Citizen Don Quixotte [sic] becomes the champion of French principles [print] / JS f.

Accession number
PML 146857.122
Creator
Sayers, James, 1748-1823.
Published
[London] : Publd 17 March 1794 by H. Humphrey, [1794].
Credit line
Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987.
Notes
One of a set of seven prints with the title: Outlines of the Opposition collected from the Designs of the most capital Jacobin Artists.
Item no. 122 of a collection of prints by James Sayers (PML 146857); formerly part of an album of mounted prints, now disbound.
Description
1 print : etching ; plate mark: 316 x 244 mm; sheet: 351 x 265 mm
Provenance
From the library of Gordon N. Ray.
Summary
Print shows Stanhope, striding forward in profile to the left, approaching an altar to "French Principles", while with his left foot and left hand he overturns a bishop seated behind him on a bench. On the summit of a quasi-cylindrical altar is the seated figure of a female monster with webbed wings, snaky hair, and pendent breasts, a firebrand in the right hand, a dagger in the left. Behind her stands a foppish Frenchman with a simian head, dressed as a soldier, one foot resting on a large skull. In his right hand is a headsman's axe, in his left he holds out to Stanhope a hangman's noose. Stanhope places on the altar a paper inscribed in large letters: "Philosophy Atheism Rapine Murder". The altar itself is decorated with a headsman's axe and block, the word "Liberté" in a wreath, and shackles. At its foot lie a cross and an overturned chalice. The bishop's head is turned in back view; he topples backwards as Stanhope kicks his bench; he represents the bench of bishops. Cf. George.
Classification
Department