An African woman known as 'Sartje' or the Hottentot Venus stands, left, in profile, a smoking pipe in her mouth and tall staff in her right hand. She has an enormous posterior and stands nude except for a pair of garters around her calves, a thin girdle round her waist, a beaded headdress and beaded necklace. Grenville stands behind her but looks back over his shoulder at her. Dressed in formal court dress, he too is depicted with an enormous posterior. Grenville says: Well I never expected Broad Bottoms from Africa! but one should never dispair! Mind Sherry dont let your Fireey nose touch the Venus for if theres any conbustibls about her we shall be blown up!!" In his pocket is a paper inscribed Chaselor [sic]. Between them, half-kneeling, Sheridan measures her bottom using a compass and answers: I shall be carefull your Lordship! but such a spanker it beats your Lordship's hollow."
Description:
Title from item/, Artist and imprint information based on a close copy with same title and same dialogue with misspellings. Cf. British Museum catalogue, no. 11578., Sheet trimmed within plate mark., Watermark: J Whatman Turkey Mill., and Collector's stamp on verso: half-length raised figure of fox with initials MW below.
Publisher:
Walker Cornhill?
Subject (Name):
Baartman, Sarah, Grenville, William Wyndham Grenville, Baron, 1759-1834, Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 1751-1816, and Great Britain. Court of Chancery
Subject (Topic):
Officials and employees, Khoikhoi (African people), Africans, and England
Caricature of a young surgeon undergoing questioning by his peers. A satire on the Royal College of Surgeons, London and "Plate from the 'Scourge', ii. 263 (second state). Members of the Court of Examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons sit on the outer side of a horse-shoe table, four on each side of the Master, who sits in a raised chair, wearing a gown, bands, and hat. On the table before him are a skull and bone. The examinee, trembling and insignificant, stands on the extreme left, facing a man who has risen from his chair to say angrily, "Describe, the Organs of Hearing"; the latter's neighbour listens intently through an ear-trumpet. The next Examiner sleeps with folded arms; next, and on the Master's right, is a man turning his back on the Master and holding his nose while he studies a book: 'Question upon Wind I Suppose a man was to . . . What w . . . you . . .' The aged and toothless Master (Sir Charles Blicke, 1745-1815) listens with senile intensity through an ear-trumpet. On his left two Scots, ungainly fellows wearing tartan, are absorbed in conversation; one says: "you paid too dear for it brother Sergeant," the other takes snuff from a mull. Next is a fat man with swathed gouty legs; crutches lie on the ground beside him; he has a paper 'THH [sic] COW POX CRONICLE', suggesting that he is Jenner (not a surgeon). He has a pen in his mouth, spectacles on forehead, and looks sideways at his neighbour, a lean old man who is intently counting piles of coin. In the foreground is a trough containing books; a man stands near it holding a large volume and looking towards examiner and examinee. A man leaves the room (right) looking over his shoulder with shocked distress, and exclaiming "Oh!" In his pocket is a paper: 'A Peter on the Gravel'. The Master's chair is decorated with skulls; from its back projects a striped pole supporting a skull which serves as a wig-block, emblem of the old connexion between surgeons and barbers, see No. 9092, &c. Under the chair are money-bags, one inscribed '£50', the other 'For Shirt'. Behind the chair are two niches or alcoves in each of which a skeleton is suspended by the neck from a rope; one (left) is 'Govenor [sic] Wall' [see No. 9845], the other 'Lady Brownrigg'. These are symmetrically flanked by four pictures: [1] a prizefight between a black pugilist and a skeleton at which the Master of the College presides, standing before his chair. [2] Saartjie Baartman, 'the Hottentot Venus', see No. 11577, &c., stands in profile to the right while 'Nobody', a man whose legs are jointed to his shoulders as in No. 12438, &c., points with amusement at her huge posterior. [3] A young woman without arms or legs, placed on a bergere, is inspected by an ugly man, who points at her. [4] A brazen cow (or golden calf) is supported on a garlanded pillar on whose base is a crown; round this men, apparently surgeons, dance gleefully, holding hands in a ring. On the extreme left of the wall is an ornate clock, showing that the time is eleven. It is topped by a grinning figure of Time holding an hourglass. On the ground is a paper: 'At the sign of the Cow's Head Lincolns Inn Feilds'."--British Museum online catalogue
Description:
Title etched below image., Plate from: The Scourge, or, Monthly expositor of imposture and folly. London: W. Jones, v. 2 (October 1811), page 263., and Temporary local Medical Library subject terms: Examination for license -- Vaccination controversy.
Publisher:
Pubd. October 1st, 1811, by M. Jones, 5 Newgate Strt
Subject (Name):
Blicke, Charles, Sir, 1745-1815, Blizard, William, Sir, 1743-1835., Earle, James, Sir, 1755-1817., Home, Everard, Sir, 1756-1832, Dundas, David, Sir, 1735?-1820., Biffin, Sarah, 1784-1850., Baartman, Sarah, Jenner, Edward, 1749-1823, Wall, Joseph, 1737-1802., Brownrigg, Elizabeth, 1720?-1767., and Royal College of Surgeons in London.
Subject (Topic):
Medicine and art, Physicians, Questioning, Surgery, Surgeons, Table, Deafness, Gout, Medical students, and Hearing aids
