"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
Alternative Title:
Cognocenti contemplating the beauties of the antique and Cognoscenti contemplating the beauties of the antique
Description:
Title etched below image., Sheet trimmed within plate mark., Temporary local subject terms: Antiques -- Literature reference: Hamilton, Sir William, 1730-1803: Observations on Mount Vesuvius., and Matted to 62 x 49 cm.
Publisher:
Pubd. Feby. 11th, 1801, by H. Humphrey, 27 St. James's Street
"A bedroom scene. Lady Hamilton, grotesquely fat, but with traces of beauty in her features, rises from a curtained bed, arms and one leg extended in a burlesqued gesture of despair. She wears a nightgown and lace-trimmed cap. Behind her in the shadowed depths of the bed the night-capped head of her elderly and (?) sleeping husband, rests on the pillow. She looks, weeping, towards an open sash-window through which is seen a fleet sailing towards the horizon. In the window (left) is a cushioned window seat on which (besides a stocking) is an open book: 'Studies of Academic Attitudes taken from the Life'; on one page is a nude woman lying in sensual abandonment. On the right against the curtains of the bed is a dressing-table on which, besides toilet-articles, are a flask of 'Maraschino', a 'Composing Draught', and a pot of 'Rouge à la Naples'. On the carpeted floor (right) are objects from Sir W. Hamilton's collection, with an open book: 'Antiquities of Herculaneum Naples Caprea &c. &c.'; on the right page is a satyr chasing a nymph. They include an oval gem, a figure of a squatting monster, headless, the base inscribed 'Pri[apus]', a laughing bust of 'Messalina', statues of a Venus and a Satyr, coins or medals, one inscribed 'Ovid', another 'Tibertius'. In front of Lady Hamilton are the slippers she has kicked off, and a garter inscribed 'The Hero of the Nile'."--British Museum online catalogue
Description:
Title etched below image., Four lines of quoted verse, two on either side of title, etched below image: "Ah, where & ah where, is my gallant sailor gone? "He's gone to fight the Frenchmen, for George upon the throne. "He's gone to fight [the] Frenchmen, t' loose t' other arm & eye. "And left me with the old antiques, to lay me down & cry., "Dido" is a reference to a character from Virgil's Aeneid., Sheet trimmed within plate mark., and BAC: British Art Center copy is hand-colored. Bound with (as frontispiece): A new edition considerably enlarged, of Attitudes faithfully copied from nature (London: H. Humphrey, 1807).
Publisher:
Pubd. Feby. 6th, 1801, by H. Humphrey, No. 27 St. James Street, London
