The green bag, it's contents & all it's appendages are insufficient to turn the scale of public opinion [graphic]

Description

Title: The green bag, it's contents & all it's appendages are insufficient to turn the scale of public opinion [graphic]
Alternative Title: Green bag, its contents and all its appendages are insufficient to turn the scale of public opinion
Creator: Heeston, active 1820, printmaker
Contributor: Fores, S. W., publisher.
Published / Created: July 11, 1820.
Publication Place: London
Publisher: Pubd. by S.W. Fores, 41 Piccadilly
Abstract: "A hand, 'Manus Populi', extends into the design from the upper margin, holding a chain from which hangs a pair of scales. On one (right), close to the ground, sits the Queen, hands crossed on her breast, saying: "My innocence will support me & my Country will protect me-- 10 Great Men against one unprotected Woman are fearful odds." The other scale, high in the air, is completely filled by a green bag, see British Museum Satires No. 13735, from the mouth of which emerges the head of George IV, crowned. Attached to the beam, by a rope round his neck, hangs a military officer, holding a huge key; as a makeweight he dangles vainly against the left side of the King's bag. Three men standing below pull at the scale, trying to drag it down: they are Sidmouth (left), a judge in back view (? Leach), and Castlereagh (right), who says: "We cannot do it, and I told you so at first, & if she opens her bag we shall be stifled all of us." The King looks down at them with a distressed expression, saying: "Pull you lubbers.""--British Museum online catalogue
Description: Title etched below image.
Date precedes publisher's statement in imprint.
Sheet trimmed to plate mark.
1 print : etching ; sheet 33.9 x 23.7 cm.
Printed on laid paper with watermark "J. Whatman Turkey Mill 1819"; hand-colored.
Sheet trimmed within plate mark.
Window mounted to 35.1 x 25 cm, the whole then mounted to 58 x 39 cm.
Mounted on leaf 44 in volume 1 of the W.E. Gladstone collection of caricatures and broadsides surrounding the "Queen Caroline Affair."
Figures of "Liverpool," "Eldon," "Londondery [sic]," and "Caroline" identified in black ink below image; date "11 July 1820" written in lower right corner. Typed extract of three lines from the British Museum catalogue description is pasted beneath print.
Provenance: Sold by London's Dulau and Company to the New York City bookseller Ernest R. Gee in 1928. Earlier ownership by W.E. Gladstone is suggested by a manuscript note from Dulau formerly laid into the front the first volume (now in the object file), which states that "These came from the Gladstone Library at Court Hey, Broad Green. The manuscript notes written below the caricatures are in the handwriting of W.E. Gladstone." William Reese Company; February 2024.
Extent: 1 print : sheet 35.2 x 26 cm
Extent of Digitization: This object has been completely digitized.
Language: English