[Rarebooks] fa: CRUIKSHANK - "THE ACTING MAGISTRATES" re. OLD PRICE RIOTS at COVENT GARDEN 1809

[ArCh]

Listed now, auctions ending MONDAY, Monday, May 5. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/y5h7lppd

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


GeorgeCruikshank and Isaac Cruikshank:] Acting Magistrates commiting[sic] themselves being their first appearance on this stage as performed at the National Theatre Covent Garden. Sepr 18 1809. [London: 1809]. Hand-colored etching; 395 x 263 mm (15 1/2 x 10 1/2 in). Trimmed to within the border, light soiling.

A satire on the "O.P. [Old Price] Riots" at the newly rebuilt Covent Garden Theatre, incited by the management's decision to raise the prices of most seats and to convert the upper balcony into private boxes. "The riots lasted three months, and ended with John Philip Kemble, the manager of the theatre, being forced to make a public apology. It was  said that as many as 20 people died and many more wounded during this event" (Wikipedia). "The stage of Covent Garden Theatre is seen from the right with a small part of the pit in the left foreground; the boxes and galleries adjoining the stage form the background on the left. The pittites are standing and blow trumpets, spring rattles, ring bells, and shout. Those in the crowded boxes behave in the same way; with one exception all are men. Two men occupy each of the two boxes over the stage-door; they watch passively. The musicians' seats are empty, but candles burn beside their open music-books, and one of the orchestra stands facing the audience, threatening them with fist and baton. On the stage three men stand together addressing the audience. The man in the centre holds out a paper: 'Riot Act'; he says: "We shall Read the riot act". Behind them stands Kemble wearing a tail-coat and white trousers, appealing to the audience with his hands meekly together as if in prayer. Large notices and placards hang from the galleries and boxes: 'Old Prices' [five times]; 'Harris will but Kemble won,t'; 'No Kembles No more insults'; 'Kemble remember the Dublin Tin Man'; 'No Foreign Sofas'; 'Iohn Bull against Iohn Kemble'; 'No Catalani'; 'Old Prices' [three times]; 'No Italian Private Boxes'; '£6000 for Caterwauling'; 'Catalani', below a print of a cat dressed as a woman, and singing 'Me Yo' from a music-book; 'No Catalani!! Mountain— Billington, and Dickons for ever'; 'Ol Price for ever No caterwauling'; 'Old Prices No Catalani'...[etc.]" (M. Dorothy George, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum, VIII, 1947). BM Satires 11418.