A gentleman leads a young woman and her mother (or chaperone) to the door of a carriage, held open by the coach driver who wears a top hat and a peculiar grin. In the background is a house or inn with a partially drawn figure (in ink) watching or emerging from the door. On the verso, pencil sketches of two men in top hats, and a smaller figure lightly sketched with a top hat in black ink
Description:
Title devised by cataloger., Signed by the artist in lower left., Date from dealer's description., and On verso are later inscriptions in pencil.
Subject (Topic):
Young adults, Carriages & coaches, Coach drivers, and Dwellings
A set of playing cards, or transformation cards, drawn by an unidentified artist, showing caricatured figures; each vignette incorporates the formation of hearts or diamonds into the scene. Some of the cards are numbered or annotated on the backs while others show drafts of other sketches. The set contains only the red suits, cards numbered from one to ten in each, although some numbers are missing and there are multiples of some numbers. Illustrations are also duplicated while others appear not to have been finished. There are no cards with clubs and spades. A number of the cards center on Shakespearean themes, social history, and street scenes (such as courtroom drama, musicians performing, a man in the stocks and, in a few, card playing itself). Some of the scenes depicted on these cards show more ribald, drawing from Macbeth’s Weird Sisters, Twelfth Night, King John, and The Merry Wives of Windsor; several are annotated on the reverse with lines from the plays. Falstaff is featured on several cards. Many of the cards reflect the mores of the period and the contrast between ruling passions and rules of conduct. In one, two men cast judgment upon a pregnant woman; it is annotated on the reverse with a dialogue between a Constable and a Judge. In "Village School" a schoolteacher manages to simultaneously hold a book and pinch a child's ear (nine of hearts). Other subjects include a game of chess (five of diamonds); drinking and smoking in a pub (seven of diamonds); and "Bunbury’s Country Club" (six of diamonds) in which the artist has kept elements from the print (published circa 1788). On the ten of diamonds the artist depicts a game of whist (annotated on the reverse "Can you one?").
Description:
In English., Title devised by cataloger., Some cards annotated and numbered on the verso., and For further information, consult library staff.
Subject (Geographic):
Great Britain
Subject (Name):
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616
Subject (Topic):
Playing cards, Card games, and Social life and customs
Volume 1, page 125. Catalogue of the classic contents of Strawberry Hill collected by Horace
Image Count:
1
Resource Type:
still image
Abstract:
View of a large Gothic-style building in the middle distance, framed by trees and with low bushes in front. A groundskeeper and two cows seen on the lawn in front of the structure; a small boat is moored to the shore of the body of water in the foreground
Description:
Title devised by curator., Signed in lower left corner with the artist Thomas H. Shepherd's initials., Date of production based on the inclusion in the same volume of other drawings by Shepherd that depict the temporary building for the Strawberry Hill Sale of 1842., and Bound in as page 125 in volume 1 of Thomas Mackinlay's extra-illustrated copy of A catalogue of the classic contents of Strawberry Hill collected by Horace Walpole.
