"A satire on the struggle between Pitt and Thurlow travestied as a scene from 'Paradise Lost'. Pitt (left) is Death, wearing the king's crown and using a long sceptre as a weapon. Thurlow (right) is Satan; he raises the (breaking) mace to smite, and holds out an oval shield decorated with the bag of the Great Seal and a tiny woolsack. The Queen, as Sin, naked, with snaky locks (Medusa-like), and two writhing serpents for legs, interposes with outstretched arms, looking with terrified face at Thurlow in her desire to protect Pitt. She is a hideous hag with pendent breasts; from her snaky hair hangs a large key inscribed 'The Instrument of all our Woe', and evidently symbolizing Secret Influence ... Pitt's naked body is emaciated and corpse-like; from his shoulders hangs a long ermine-trimmed cloak; his sceptre radiates darts of lightning. His face expresses alarm and determination. Behind him, and guarding the gate of Hell which is indicated by a stone arch, is Cerberus, with the profile heads of Dundas, Grenville, and Richmond, looking up at Thurlow; their body terminates in a large serpent with a barbed tail. Thurlow has wings, and is naked except for a quasi-Roman kilt. He wears his Chancellor's wig, his profile and eyebrow are of a terrifying fierceness; serpents twine round his shield, and spit fire at Pitt and the Queen; a serpent entwined in Pitt's crown, and others in the Queen's snaky locks, retaliate. On the right are the flames of Hell in which demons are flying; smoke fills the background. Beneath the design is etched: 'NB: The above performance containing Portraits of the Devil & his Relatives, drawn from the Life, is recommended to Messrs Boydell, Fuselli & the rest of the Proprietors of the Three Hundred & Sixty Five Editions of Milton now publishing, as necessary to be adopted, in their classick Embellishments.'"-- British Museum online catalogue
Description:
Title etched below image., Printmaker from British Museum catalogue., Six columns of verse from Milton's Paradise Lost, four above the image and two below: "... black it stood as night, Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as hell, And shook a dreadfull dart: what seemd his head, The likeness of a Kingly crown had on;' ... "Had not the Snaky-Sorceress that sat, "Fast by hell-gate, and kept the fatal Key, "Ris'n, and with hideous outcry rushd between.'", One line of text in bottom of design: NB: The above performance containing portraits of the Devil & his relatives ..., and Mounted to 36 x 49 cm.
Publisher:
Pubd. June 9th, 1792, by H. Humphrey, No. 18 Old Bond Street
Subject (Name):
Shakspeare Gallery., Charlotte, consort of George III, King of Great Britain, 1744-1818, Pitt, William, 1759-1806, Thurlow, Edward Thurlow, Baron, 1731-1806, Melville, Henry Dundas, Viscount, 1742-1811, Grenville, William Wyndham Grenville, Baron, 1759-1834, and Richmond and Lennox, Charles Lennox, Duke of, 1735-1806
Subject (Topic):
Cerberus (Greek mythology), Medusa (Greek mythology), and Serpents
Title from item., Printmaker, artist and imprint from an earlier state in the British Museum online catalogue. This state without imprint, possibly by a different publisher., In lower right corner of plate: Price 3d plain, coloured 6d., Six lines of text below each image: Religion, morality ... (under the image of British Liberty), Atheism, perjury ... (under the image of French Liberty), with additional line below both columns: which is best., Later state, without the publication line, of No. 8284 in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires, v. 7., Temporary local subject terms: British Lion -- Liberty: allusion to Magna Charta -- Symbols: scales of Justice -- Ships -- Symbols: ship with the Union Jack as symbol of power -- Medusa as personification of French liberty -- Executions: Street lantern as gibbet -- Lighting: street light -- Decapitations -- Weapons: daggers., and Watermark: Strasburg bend with initials G R below.
Publisher:
publisher not identified
Subject (Topic):
Britannia (Symbolic character), Liberty cap, and Medusa (Greek mythology)