The Dutch apollo!

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Charles Williams
1796-1866
The Dutch apollo!
hand colored etching
image: 222 x 330 mm; plate mark: 250 x 351 mm; sheet: 266 x 369 mm
Peel 1976
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Notes: 

Lettered "London Pubd June 29 1814 by Wm Holland 11 Cockspur St."

Summary: 

The Prince of Orange (left), dressed like a Dutchman in (English) caricature, kneels with arms extended imploringly at the feet of Princess Charlotte (a good portrait). He wears Apollo's wreath, decorated with small oranges, before him is his clumsy flower-pot hat, containing a paper: 'Rules for the game of ye Dutch Pins' (ninepins); beside this is a Jews' harp, a degraded form of Apollo's lyre. His breeches are enormously bulky, and a tobacco-pipe projects from a pocket. He sings: "Lovely Maid, assuage my Anguish! ... In a Dutchman's great big breeches!!!" She stands beside a table (right) at which she has been sitting. On this are her painting materials, pencil, brushes, cakes of water-colour, porcelain palette, and jar of water, with an open box. Her painting is on a sloping board: a fat Dutchman trudges off, a bundle at his back, in the direction of a sign-post pointing 'To Holland'; he grasps his head despairingly. Behind the Prince a French window with draped curtains gives on to a small balcony. By the window are flowering plants in a jardinière; a sofa stands against the wall; a patterned carpet completes the design.

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