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 blessings of peace, the curses of war / desgn'd & engrav'd by Js. Gy. for the chariman & members of the Crown & Anchor Society.

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James Gillray
1756-1815

The blessings of peace, the curses of war / desgn'd & engrav'd by Js. Gy. for the chariman & members of the Crown & Anchor Society.

Published

[London] : H. Humphrey, 1795.

aquatint
image: 30.3 x 36.2 cm; plate: 32.6 x 37.7 cm; sheet: 33 x 38.7 cm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 2848
Provenance

Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.

Summary

A design in two adjacent circles, with inscriptions above and below the circles on an aquatinted ground. In the manner of genre, not satire. [1] The kitchen of a young English farmer who sits with his arm round a little boy (right) who stands at his knee eating an apple, while his pretty wife (left) holds out a buxom child to kiss him. He holds a sickle. A dog sits at his feet. Behind (right), before a blazing fire, a young woman places a sirloin of beef upon a round table, laid for a meal, with a large pitcher beside it. A pestle and mortar and other brass utensils are neatly ranged on the chimney-piece, beside which is a spit. A ham and string of onions hang on the wall. Through an open door (left) are a hen and chickens, two pigs feeding in a stye, and a haystack. The title continues: 'Prosperity & Domestick-Happiness.' [2] A young farmer lies stabbed to the heart by a bayonet, surrounded by his despairing and terrified wife and three children. Behind (right) is a ruined house. In the background (left) French soldiers are driving off sheep and cattle, and a village (right) is in flames. Behind is the sea with ships of war at anchor.

Associated names
Gillray, James, 1756-1815, engraver.
Humphrey, Hannah, active 1774-1817, publisher.
Peel, Robert, 1788-1850, former owner.
Classification
Department
Century prints