[Rarebooks] fa: IRELAND - HAND-COLORED SATIRICAL/POLITICAL PRINTS 1812-24

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with other illustrated works, auctions ending Sunday, February 3. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/ba9hgsg

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

NEWRY ELECTION. Dublin: Publish'd by T. O'Callaghan, 11 Bride Street, one door from Ross Lane, [1812]. Hand-colored etching; 323 x 219 mm (12 3/4 x 8 5/8 in.). Trimmed inside the plate mark, small hole to bottom margin, offsetting and paper residue from old mounting on the reverse. BM Satires 11911. An authentic original print, not a modern reproduction.
A lively depiction of an Irish political gathering; the anonymous artist owes much to James Gillray in his depiction of the grotesque features of the unruly mob. In this election, John Philpot Curran, a promoter of Catholic Emancipation, unsuccessfully challenged the anti-Catholic General Francis Needham for his seat in parliament. Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum, IX, 1949: "Ragged Irish peasants in the foreground are cheering 'Needham for Ever', under the influence of a few well-dressed top-booted men. One elector (left) stands between two of the latter, each of whom puts a coin into his extended hands; he says: "Upon my soul I can't take such a trifle to sell my Country." Another propels a peasant towards the hustings, saying, "Come on my Boy the General will do your business." … Two poll-clerks sit at a desk (left), and near this a man  tackles another to prevent his flying at Curran who is making a speech on the hustings (right). Curran is surrounded by six respectable-looking men seated on benches. He says, pointing down at his opponent, "Am I to be disturbed by the Obscene Unnatural grimaces of a Baboon." …The General in full regimentals, angrily draws his sword in the foreground (right), looking up at the hustings... Behind General Needham are a cask with a flagon inscribed 'Needh[am]', and a cart from which six grotesque ragamuffins watch the hustings. In the cart are lifeless men, apparently dead drunk. Under Needham's feet is a terrier, its collar inscribed 'Needham', which barks at a sow with a brood of miniature pigs. In the background (right) is Newry, closely built, with dilapidated cottages in the middle distance…General Needham, afterwards 12th Viscount Kilmorey, represented Newry from 1806 to 1818. In 1812 the electors invited Curran to contest the seat, but after a single speech, which is almost the only considerable one he ever made to a purely popular assembly, he retired on 17 Oct., the sixth day of the election, the results being 346 to 144."

INTERIOR OF A DANCING SCHOOL, on the borders of Conaught — 1/10th of the Military receiving a Lesson. [Dublin:] Pub. by McCleary, [1824]. Hand-colored etching; 298 x 198 mm (10 1/8 x 7 3/4 in.). Trimmed inside the plate mark, a few light creases, paper residue from old mounting on the reverse. An authentic original print, not a modern reproduction.
A grinning, imposing Irishman threatens to give a dancing lesson (i.e., a thrashing) to a dandified officer of the 10th Hussars while a crippled peasant boy plays the uileann bagpipes. The notice on the right reads, "Tom Dooly Tacher of awl kinds and Sorts of dansin. N.B. Cawdrils [quadrilles] on the shortest notice or sooner if wanted." Dooly proclaims, in part, "…for Old decency sake, I'll jest be after giving you a bit of a Lesson, and shure enough I'll soon make you Dance to the Tune of the Sprig of Shilelagh!" To which the cowering hussar replies, "The 10th don't Daunce."