A cognocenti [sic] contemplating [the] beauties of [the] antique [graphic]

"Sir William Hamilton, old and bent, inspects his antiques. He stands in profile to left, looking through spectacles held in his right hand and reversed. He wears a round hat, a spencer over his coat and spurred top-boots, a stick in his (gloved) left hand; an expressive glove issues from his coat pocket. The objects at which he gazes are on a cloth-covered table. In the centre is a bust of 'Lais', the head that of Lady Hamilton, with fashionably dressed hair, but with nose, mouth, and chin broken away. Next it is a nude and headless Bacchante holding up a bunch of grapes (this was one of his wife's famous attitudes). Behind is a term with the head of a bull inscribed 'APIS'. Other objects are a weeping Cupid with a broken arrow, a grotesque goblet, a cracked chamber-pot on which nude figures dance. Against the wall (right) stands a mummy-like figure of 'MIDAS', with ass's ears. Other grotesque and broken objects stand on the carpet. On the wall are four pictures (left to right): 'Cleopatra', Lady Hamilton, three-quarter length, indecently décolletée and holding a bottle of 'Gin'; 'Mark Antony', Nelson, three-quarter length, a sea-fight in the background; a volcano in eruption; 'Claudius', a profile half length of Hamilton turning his back on the other pictures, the frame decorated with a stag's head."--British Museum online catalogue