Gambols on the River Thames Feby. 1814 / [graphic]

"A crowded scene, broadly caricatured, on the frozen Thames just above London Bridge, which forms a background, with coaches passing and spectators looking down. In the foreground (right) a jovial waterman straddles behind his ninepins at which an artisan is about to throw. Men and women drink and fight in an open tent inscribed 'Shannon', where a large pot cooks on a brazier. A man's wooden leg plunges through the ice; a fat woman falls on her back on breaking ice, dragging down a man by his pigtail and terrifying and tripping up a fiddler and a raffish man in a furred and braided overcoat with a flamboyant top-hat. Customers (left) buy souvenirs from a printer who inks a block: behind is a press placarded 'The Thames Printing Office--Copper Plate printg done in the Best Style by J water-- Wagtail & Co.' There are two makeshift tents on the left: one placarded 'Gin and Gingerbread Sold here Wholesale'; the other: 'The Nelson'. In the middle distance revellers drink or dance, and a woman at a stall cries "Here's my smoking Hot sasengers a penney a peic"."--British Museum online catalogue