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.

Bottom Snout & Quince / IB.

Image not available
John Boyne
approximately 1750-1810

Bottom Snout & Quince / IB.

Published

[London] : Published April 15th 1784 by J. Wallis N 16 Ludgate St, [1784]

etching
image: 312 x 227 mm; plate mark: 345 x 24 mm; sheet: 339 x 227 mm
Peel 3280
Notes
One of many satires on the Westminster Election.
Library's copy trimmed within plate mark.
Provenance

Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.

Summary

Fox (left) as Bottom with an ass's head sits on an upturned market-basket in the Piazza, Covent Garden. The eyes and eyebrows and the arrangement of the hair make the head resemble that of Fox with a disconsolate expression. North and Burke, as Snout and Quince, stand regarding him in profile to the left. North, as the tinker, wears a tucked-up apron; he holds up his hands, saying, "O Bottom thou art Chang'd. What do I see on thee". Burke, dressed as a Jesuit (cf. BMSat 6026), his biretta worn over a bald head, his left hand on North's shoulder, looks over him at Fox, saying, "Bless thee Bottom Bless thee thou art Translated". Fox is seated outside the Shakespeare Tavern which was his election head-quarters: in the arch of the arcade behind him is a sign 'The Shakspea[re] Tavern', with a bunch of grapes; on the wall above is 'Great Piazza'. On the right, above the heads of North and Fox, is the portico of St. Paul's Church, where polling took place. Cf. British Museum online catalog.

Associated names
Wallis, J. (John), -1818, publisher.
Peel, Robert, 1788-1850, former owner.
Classification
Department
Century prints