[Rarebooks] fa: GEORGE CRUIKSHANK - THE CATO STREET CONSPIRATORS 1820 - Hand-Colored Etching

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction 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


George Cruikshank: The Cato Street Conspirators, on the Memorable Night of the 23d of Feby 1820, at the Moment when Smithers the Police Officer was stabbed; NB The Scene faithfully represented from the Description of Mr Ruthven, the View of the Interior correctly Sketched on the Spot—. London: G. Humphrey, 1820. Hand-colored etching, glazed and framed. Frame size: 17 x 12 1/2 in.; print size: 15 1/8 x 10 1/8 in. Inscription: "Pubd. March 9th 1820 by G. Humphrey No 27— St James's Street—London / G. Cruikshank fect." Trimmed to border; some very light toning, else very good; not examined out of frame. BM Satires 13707; Cohn 977.

Cruikshank's dramatic rendering of the breaking-up of a radical plot to assassinate the entire British Cabinet. "Three Bow Street officers have entered the loft above the stable by an interior ladder (right). The foremost, Smithers, stabbed with a sword by Thistlewood, falls into the arms of the second, Ruthven; the third, Ellis, stands close behind; both fire at Thistlewood. The conspirators grouped at a table (left) on which lighted candles are stuck, prepare to shoot or to use pike, bayonet, or sword, or try to escape under the roof (left) or by a skylight (right). One man puts his hat over a candle. Weapons, tankards, &c., are on table and ground... Besides Thistlewood, the men arrested (then or later) were William Davidson (a negro), James Ings, John Thomas Brunt, Richard Tidd (who were executed 1 May 1820); James William Wilson, John Harrison, Richard Bradburn, John Shaw Strange, James Gilchrist, Charles Cooper, who were pardoned on condition of being transported for life; Robert Adams and John Monument were arrested but turned King's evidence. The arrest was on the day of a Cabinet dinner at Lord Harrowby's when all the Ministers were to have been murdered, Edwards, Thistlewood's special confidante, being a Government spy, who kept the Home Office informed" (M. Dorothy George, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum, X, 1952).