"A phrenologist, De Ville, in his consulting room, feels the forehead of a loutish gaping youth who kneels on a cushion at his feet. Behind the boy stands his stupid-looking mother, grinning with delight at her son. De Ville, who wears plain old-fashioned dress, has a grotesquely shaped skull fringed with scanty hair; his left hand rests on an open book on his table on which is a skull, numbered phrenologically and resting on a paper: Thurtell [murderer] shown to be Craniologically an Excellent Character. Behind him stands an assistant with a porcine profile writing in a note-book: Very large Wit N° 32. A large book-case covers much of the wall (right). There are also portrait heads illustrating grotesque misshapen features, and a bust on a pedestal with a satyr-like profile."--British Museum online catalogue, description of an earlier state
Description:
Title etched below image., Sheet trimmed within plate mark., Four lines of quoted text below title: "Pores o'er the cranial map with learned eyes, Each rising hill and bumpy knoll descries, Here secret fires, and there deep mines of sense, His touch detects beneath each prominence.", and For an earlier state before aquatint added, see no. 15157 in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires, v. 10.
Publisher:
Pubd. Feby. 24th, 1826, by G. Humphrey, 24 St. James's Strt., London
Subject (Geographic):
England.
Subject (Name):
De Ville, J. and Thurtell, John, 1794-1824.
Subject (Topic):
Phrenology, Costume, Caricatures and cartoons, Bookcases, and Muffs
