Tasting [graphic]

"A civic feast: men sit on each side of a table whose ends are cut off by the margins of the print. Four men sit on a bench on the near side of the table: a short man (left) in regimentals, his hair or wig in a long pigtail queue, probably an officer in the city militia, drinks from a tankard. Next him a man in bag-wig and laced coat is waggishly pouring the contents of a sauce-boat into the coat-pocket of the man on his right hand, who, quite unconscious of this, is stuffing into his other pocket provisions abstracted from the table. The man on the extreme left lifts his glass in his left hand, looking across to the man at the opposite corner of the table, who stands to return his toast. On the farther side of the table are six men. A waiter serves a stout man with wine. The wall of the room forms the background: in the centre is a chimney-piece, over which is the seated three quarter length portrait of a Lord Mayor wearing his civic chain and smoking a long pipe; his elbow rests on a table and on a document "Pro Magna Charta". An open book is "Lord Littleton on Co[ke]". On each side of the chimney-piece hang hats, one with a tasselled cane."--British Museum online catalogue