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 Major presiding at the Communion of Saints

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The Major presiding at the Communion of Saints

[Dublin] : [publisher not identified], [1811]
etching
sheet: 198 x 120 mm
Peel 1821
Notes
Title from item.
Etched illustration from Irish Catholic magazine and monthly asylum for neglected biography (Volume IV, June, 1811).
Library's copy closely trimmed within plate mark.
Not in George.
Provenance

Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.

Summary

Print shows Major Sirr, seated on a cannon "as Chairman" presiding at the Communion of "the British army of Saints". Their mission is to confiscate the engines of sedition and popery, pikes and crucifixes. This is done with the help of a special machine which detects pikes buried by the seditious Irish "for future massacres". Sirr is perched on several oversized books, presumably bibles, and peacefully resting against a flogging triangle, the two crossed lashes above his head and on the standard parodying crucifixes. In the foreground, Gribbins is kneeling in rapturous prayer, while one figure is busy digging up a buried pike.

Associated names
Peel, Robert, 1788-1850, former owner.
Classification
Department