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.

Cincinnatus in retirement : falsely supposed to represent Jesuit-pad driven back to his native Potatoes. See Romish Common-Wealth.

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James Gillray
1756-1815

Cincinnatus in retirement : falsely supposed to represent Jesuit-pad driven back to his native Potatoes. See Romish Common-Wealth.

Published

[London] : Pubd Augt 23d 1782. by Eh D'Achery. St James Street, [1782]

etching and engraving :
image: 228 x 326 mm; plate mark: 258 x 360 mm; sheet: 249 x 352 mm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 3227
Notes
By James Gillray.
Library's copy trimmed within plate mark.
Provenance

Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.

Summary

A satire on Burke's resignation after the death of Rockingham. Burke, as an Irish Jesuit, seated at a table eating potatoes. While he wears a monkish robe, a rosary hanging from his rope and girdle, and bare feet with sandals, he wears a wig and under his robe, which is open at the neck, a cravat, shirt frill, and coat-collar are visible. He wears spectacles, and is seated on a three-legged stool, facing left, and peeling with his long fingers a steaming potato taken from a chamber-pot on the table in front of him which is filled with potatoes, in which is stuck a two-pronged fork. The pot is inscribed "Relick N° I. used by St Peter". On the table are also a wine-glass, a plate with a bare bone on it, a steaming saucepan, a birch-rod, two candles stuck in bottles, one of which hangs down broken and guttering. At the opposite end of the table from Burke is a crucifix standing on a small cask inscribed "Whiskey". The figure on the cross is mutilated, the head and one leg from the knee are broken off. Beneath the table, which is oblong, plain and solid, three imps or demons dance, holding hands. On the right behind Burke is a large open fire-place, with wood burning on the hearth, a fender and firearms. Over the fire-place is a caricature of a monk inscribed "Bonniface". On the back wall, over Burke's head, is a framed picture of a monk standing on the shore, preaching to fishes. Bricks showing in irregular patches on the plastered wall heighten the impression of squalor. Beneath the title is engraved, "falsely

Associated names
Darchery, Elizabeth, approximately 1739-1819, publisher.
Peel, Robert, 1788-1850, former owner.
Classification
Department
Century prints