Woodward, G. M. (George Moutard), approximately 1760-1809, artist
Published / Created:
[1803]
Call Number:
Drawings W87 no. 40 Box D215
Image Count:
1
Resource Type:
still image
Abstract:
A footman leads a parson and six prospective suitors that have arrived in response to an advertisement for a husband posted by an 'old maid'. The bachelors include a Welshman, a Scotsman, and a doctor that offer flatteries while waiting, "Splutter hur, how pretty she looks, she pe [sic] a nice wench", "Leave a Scotch laddie alone for carrying off the sillar", and "From my conscience, she looks like a Venus of medicine!" respectively. The footman leans forward to shout into the elderly woman's ear trumpet, "Please your ladyship all these gentlemen be[?] come about an advartisement [sic] for a husband and to lose no time they have brought the Parson with them; please your Virginship what am I to say to em?" The elderly woman responds, "Say to them, why the men are mad, if I was so inclined do they think I would marry six husbands at once!!" A hissing cat followed by a litter of kittens stand beside the woman's chair
Description:
Title inscribed in black ink in the artist's hand below image., Signed by the artist., and Publication line inscribed in ink below image for possible later print: London, Pubd. Jany. 1, 1803 by William Holland, No. 11 Cockspur Street, removed from Oxford Street.
Subject (Topic):
Bachelors, Cats, Hearing aids, Marriage proposals, Older people, and Single women
A clergy man with a bulbous nose and large wig (right) kneels before an elderly, well-dressed woman (left) who sits in a chair with a cat on her lap. She is very thin, with wrinkled face and pursed lips and wears multiple strands of pearls around her neck and wrist. Her cat hisses at her suitor
Description:
Title etched below image., Sheet trimmed to plate mark at bottom., Eight lines of verse, signed W.H., below title: Hear me, angelic object of my love ... ., and Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires.
Publisher:
Pub. September 3, 1793, by Will. Holland, No. 50 Oxford Strt
Subject (Topic):
Cats, Clergy, Single women, Courtship, and Marriage proposals