"A travesty of a French print, an apotheosis of Napoleon by Tardieu after Dabos. As in the original, the title is on a piece of fringed drapery between two naturalistic eagles; these flank an arc of the globe, its northern summit, more flattened than in the original. On the globe is a map, with 'France' in the centre, flanked (left) by 'Golfe of Venice' and 'Italy' and (right) 'Espagne' and 'Pologne'. On the north are 'Amsterdam Pres Unie' [sic] and 'Whestphalia'. From the summit of the globe rises a pole supporting the face of Napoleon, copied from the original but with the addition of a melancholy frown and transformed by the pole into a decollated head. It is inscribed 'Polar Star' and enclosed in a circle of writhing serpents which takes the place of a laurel wreath. Rays extend from the circle over the greater part of the design, with inscriptions radiating outwards: 'Assisting in the Assassination of Louis the 16th my Benefactor'; 'Murdering the Citizens of Paris under Roberspierre' [cf. British Museum Satires No. 9534]; 'Murdering the Citizens of Toulon' [see British Museum Satires No. 10095]; 'Insulting the Pope robbing and plundering the Churches &c &c.' [see British Museum Satires No. 8997]; 'Poisoning my own Sick Soldiers in the Hospital at Jaffa' [see British Museum Satires No. 10063]; 'Murdering the Duke Danguilme' [d' Enghien, see British Museum Satires No. 10251]; 'Treacherously betraying the king of Spain and his Family' [see British Museum Satires No. 10990]; 'Murdering the inhabitants of Madrid in cold Blood' [see British Museum Satires No. 11000]; 'Murdering Captain Wright in the Temple at Paris' [see British Museum Satires No. 11057]; 'Marrying two Wives and intriguing with the Daughter of one of them' [Hortense, cf. British Museum Satires No. 10362]; 'The Murder of Palm [see British Museum Satires No. 11053] of Hoffer &c &c.'; 'Leading 500000 Frenchmen to perish in Russia by the Severity of the Season 1812' [see British Museum Satires No. 11917, &c.]; 'Loosing another similar Army the following Year in Germany 1813' [see British Museum Satires No. 12093]; 'Writing lying Bulletins' [see British Museum Satires No. 11920]; 'Loosing all the Colonies Commerce and Shipping' [cf. British Museum Satires No. 10439, &c.]. At this point, in the upper right corner, an open cask inscribed 'Dutch Comet', divides the inscriptions. A fat Dutchman smoking a pipe sits astride it; he directs the contents of the cask against Napoleon (see British Museum Satires No. 12102). The final inscription: 'And for all these brilliant Exploits am now to be sent headlong to the Devil.' In the original the rays are faintly inscribed 'Marie Louise' and 'Roi de Rome'. The design is surmounted by the head of the Devil wearing a spiky crown inscribed 'Damnation', between two oval shields: on one a heart, 'Heart of a Tyrant', on the other a 'Vulture'. These emblems replace a crown between two shields, one with the Napoleonic eagle, the other with the Habsburg eagle. From this centre-piece flames and smoke (replacing olive branches) stream left and right, with a scourge and a barbed trident. The lower corners are decorated with trophies slanting outwards from the eagles: spears, eagles, axes, &c., one spear supporting a placard: 'Flags manufactured for the Empress'. In the original spears are faintly indicated."--British Museum online catalogue.
Alternative Title:
Astre brillant, immense, il éclaire, il feconde ...
Description:
"Deposée a le Bibloteque Impereale [sic]."--Below lower right corner of image., Attributed to Rowlandson in the British Museum catalogue., Date of publication from British Museum catalogue; Grego gives a date of 14 December 1813., Title from text in image., and Two lines of text below image: Astre brillant, immense, il éclaire, il feconde, et seul fait, a son gré, tous les destins du monde, 'Vigée.'
Publisher:
R. Ackermann, 101 Strand
Subject (Name):
Ackermann, Rudolph, 1764-1834, publisher., Auchincloss, Hugh Dudley--Ownership., Harvey, Francis--Ownership., and Napoleon--I,--Emperor of the French,--1769-1821--Caricatures and cartoons.
Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires. and Title etched below image; letter "s" in "cruise" is shaped like a "z" etched backwards.
Publisher:
R. Ackermann, no. 101 Strand
Subject (Name):
Ackermann, Rudolph, 1764-1834, publisher., Auchincloss, Hugh Dudley--Ownership., Harvey, Francis--Ownership., and Woodward, G. M. (George Moutard), approximately 1760-1809, artist.
"Design in two strips showing twelve characters commenting on the Divorce Bill; an old scholar: 'There were many salutary laws on this subject amongst the Medes and Persians.', a black woman: 'What a hardship on the fair sex!', a thin, bent over man with a stick: 'Ay - and on the gay seducers too!', a weeping woman: 'The only comfort I had left!', a naive young girl: 'I must be married to know what they mean by it.', a weighty fellow: 'It cant be help'd - I have had my day!', an ugly but fashionable woman: 'Not to marry - the seducer of one's heart! was ever any thing so barbarous.', an officer: 'By St Patrick - this is the greatest cut, the cloth ever experienced.', a handsome woman: 'The beaus will absolutely run away from us.', a solid woman with a large muff: 'It is enough to make vone vicked, vether vone vill or not!', a thin man with pursed expression: 'The sums that I expected to clear by my wifes infidelity!', an alarmed cleric: 'Avoid temptation - the best of us may sometimes err!'."--British Museum online catalogue.
Description:
Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires. and Title etched below image.
Subject (Name):
Ackermann, Rudolph, 1764-1834, publisher., Auchincloss, Hugh Dudley--Ownership., Harvey, Francis--Ownership., and Woodward, G. M. (George Moutard), approximately 1760-1809, artist.
"The dignified houses of Pall Mall, receding in perspective from right to left, form a background to a crowd of carriages and pedestrians all fashionably dressed except for a woman carrying a basket."--British Museum online catalogue.
Description:
One of a group of prints on the topic of "miseries," etched by Rowlandson and issued in several series by Ackermann, that were later collected and published as the volume: Rowlandson, T. Miseries of human life. [London] : Published December 14, 1808, by R. Ackermann ..., [1808]. See British Museum catalogue and Grego., Title etched below image., and Two lines of quoted verse on either side of title: "O bear me to the paths of fair Pall Mall, safe are thy pavemts., grateful is thy smell ...
Subject (Name):
Ackermann, Rudolph, 1764-1834, publisher., Auchincloss, Hugh Dudley--Ownership., and Harvey, Francis--Ownership.
Three elderly citizens in a punt which is propelled by a boy (left) wearing trousers. Two are fishing: one stands, 'chapeau-bras', the other, who is obese, sits in a chair. The third (right) sits in a chair smoking, his back to the others. The standing fisherman, who wears spectacles, has hooked a small dog. On the right, a swan swims toward the boat.
Description:
Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires. and Title etched below image.
Subject (Name):
Ackermann, Rudolph, 1764-1834, publisher., Auchincloss, Hugh Dudley--Ownership., Bunbury, Henry William, 1750-1811, artist., and Harvey, Francis--Ownership.
Subject (Topic):
Boats, Dogs., Eyeglasses. , Fishing., and Pipes (Smoking)
"In a goblet-shaped glass vessel on the top of a cylindrical 'German Stove' a little Napoleon is being heated to dissolution point. Two retorts are connected with this vessel inscribed 'Intrigue and Villainy' and 'Ambition and Folly'; four others issue symmetrically from the stove: 'Gasconade and Lies', 'Fire and Sword', 'Arrogance and Atrocity', 'Murder and Plunder'. In the front of the stove is an opening for the fire; this is being stoked by John Bull (left), a fat 'cit' who leans forward, supporting 'Iohn Bulls Coal Tub', and holding out a lump of coal in a pair of tongs. His vis-à-vis is a fat Dutchman (right) who crouches on his knees plying a pair of 'Dutch Bellows'. He wears a cap and is smoking a pipe; beside him is a pot marked 'Gall'. Behind John stand five sovereigns or personifications of their countries: the King of Würtemberg, grotesquely obese, gazes up, pointing a finger as if giving directions; he holds an open book: 'Publishd Wirtemburgh'. Bernadotte, wearing several orders, triumphantly empties into the steaming vessel a bottle labelled 'Sulphat of Swedish Iron'. Behind him are the hussar who stands in these prints for Prussia or Frederick William III, and (?) Francis I. Between Bernadotte and the glass is an older face, perhaps the King of Saxony. All look up exultingly at the tortured Napoleon. Facing this group stands a German officer (right) stretching up to hold a lid which he is about to clap down on the vessel, though this reaches only to below the victim's waist. Napoleon, in profile to the left, puts one hand to his head with a despairing gesture, and flings out his left arm as if to ward off the extinguishing lid; he exclaims: "Oh Spare me till the King of Rome / Is ripe for mischief yet to come." On the extreme right a Spanish don pounds with a pestle in a large mortar inscribed 'Saragossa'. On the left are four men seated close together at a round table where one of them, a large Cossack, is mixing chemicals. He is directed to the left and holds a book while he mixes the contents of a small pot; a pair of scales lies on the table on which are also jars and an hour-glass. The other three watch intently; next him is a man wearing a fur cap inscribed 'Polar Star' (? Sweden or Poland) who also appears in British Museum Satires No. 12117. His neighbour resembles the Emperor of Austria, but he and the man on the extreme left may be the King of Bavaria and the Duke of Baden, princes of the Confederation of the Rhine. On the ground near the table three books are propped up. The largest is open; on the left page but scored through are the words 'Napoleon Protecter of the Rhenish Confederacy'; on the right page: 'Francis Emperor of Germany restored 1813'. The others are 'Liberty of Germany' and 'The Downfall of Boney'. Behind the Cossack, but directed to the right and watching Napoleon, stands the Pope, wearing his tiara and holding a bottle in each hand containing 'Fulminating Powder' and 'Vial of Wrath'. Chemical appliances are indicated in the background."--British Museum online catalogue.
Alternative Title:
Dissolving the Rhenish Confederacy
Description:
Printmaker from British Museum catalogue. and Title etched below image.
Publisher:
R. Ackermann, 101 Strand
Subject (Name):
Ackermann, Rudolph, 1764-1834, publisher., Auchincloss, Hugh Dudley--Ownership., Charles--XIV John,--King of Sweden and Norway,--1763-1844., Francis--I,--Emperor of Austria,--1768-1835., Frederick--I,--King of Württemberg,--1754-1816--Caricatures and cartoons., Harvey, Francis--Ownership., Napoleon--I,--Emperor of the French,--1769-1821--Caricatures and cartoons., and Pius--VII,--Pope,--1742-1823.
Subject (Topic):
John Bull (Symbolic character)--Caricatures and cartoons.
"A buxom young woman, wearing a straw bonnet and many trinkets, including a miniature, kneels at a chair in profile to the right. Behind her on a table are a punch-bowl, spirit decanter, glasses, and a long pipe; above it is a framed picture of a man-of-war. She prays to Thetis 'from the sign of the Punch-Bowl' for protection to her favourite sailors, now at sea, 'all generous fellows, and bleed freely'. She asks to be enabled to redeem her pawned trinkets, so that she may 'appear lovely in the eyes of the whole fleet'."--British Museum online catalogue.
Description:
Title printed in letterpress below plate line. and Two paragraphs of letterpress text below title: Charming Thetis, thou who blushest not at sleeping with the sun ...
Subject (Name):
Ackermann, Rudolph, 1764-1834, publisher., Auchincloss, Hugh Dudley--Ownership., Harvey, Francis--Ownership., and Woodward, G. M. (George Moutard), approximately 1760-1809, artist.
Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires., Probably an earlier reversed version of print published in 1812. Cf. No. 11972 in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires, v. 9. See also: Grego, J. Rowlandson the caricaturist, v. 2, page 236., and Title etched below image.
Subject (Name):
Ackermann, Rudolph, 1764-1834, publisher., Auchincloss, Hugh Dudley--Ownership., Harvey, Francis--Ownership., and Woodward, G. M. (George Moutard), approximately 1760-1809, artist.
"A fat 'cit' is being drilled by an officer in his shop, to the admiration of his household. A drummer beats his drum. In the background are large jars of snuff."--British Museum catalogue.
Description:
Companion print to: Soldiers recruiting., Plate numbered "No. 5" above title., Temporary local subject terms: Interiors: tobacco and snuff shop -- Military uniforms -- Shopkeepers -- Dishes: tea service., and Title etched below image.
