An "Excessively Rare" Thomas Rowlandson Suite Of Caricatures

by Stephen J. Gertz

In 1800, Rudolph Ackermann, the great print publisher, issued Masqueronians, a suite of six hand-colored emblematic etched plates by the great caricaturist, Thomas Rowlandson, each with three figures representing various English "types," for a total of eighteen.

The species include an undertaker; barber; flower girl; lawyer; soldier; fish-monger; street vendor; doctor; nun; pub owner; fashionable lady; philosopher; fox hunter; writer, and etc.

Only one copy has been seen at auction since 1922: "An excessively rare Rowlandson item, only one other copy being known" (Anderson Galleries sale, 1922).

Color-plate books depicting itinerant tradesmen and/or occupations were nothing new in 1800, when Masqueronians was published. Cries of London - "cries" being the street language of vendors hawking their wares in the squares and markets of 17th-century London - was published by John Overton in London 1680-1700. Between 1792 and 1795 Francis Wheatley exhibited a series of oil paintings entitled the “Cries of London.” It was a popular subject.

But it was up to Rowlandson to treat the subject emblematically as social satire, the wares or tools of the trade worn as garlands.

His aim included a caustic arrow to the faces he associated with each occupation. The street vendor above ("Trafficorum"), for example, is depicted with a hooked nose and it doesn't require a Ph.D. to understand that Rowlandson is skewering Jews. Rowlandson impales physicians as sour-pusses impaling patients with their main instrument of practice, a clyster syringe, the better to drain der keister of all that ails ye.

Don't get him started on nuns and the proprietors of pubs.

We will gloss-over the fashionable lady in her finest frou-frou: the philosopher appears to be annoyed to be matched with her; inquiring into the mystery of life is his trade but the mystery of women remains a mystery to him, as it was to whom appears to be his descendant, Freud.

Actors and fox-hunters beware: Rowlandson has your number. And writers? The pen may be mightier than the sword but strangled by vipers, as Penserosa seems to be, the sword might be the best way out when critics spew venom, quills being notoriously undependable instruments of suicide.

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ROWLANDSON, Thomas. Masqueronians. London: R. Ackermann, 1800.

Folio (275 x 375 mm). Six hand-colored etchings, each with three emblematic portraits, all printed in brown ink.

The Plates:

1. Philosophorum, Fancynina, Epicurum
2. Penserosa, Tally Ho! Rum!, Allegora
3. Physicorum, Nunina, Publicorum
4. Funeralorum, Virginia, Hazardorum
5. Battleorum, Billingsgatina, Trafficorum
6. Barberoum, Flora, Lawyerorum

BM Satires 9616-9621.

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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A Rare Book's Roll-Call of Dishonest, Immoral, and Unusual People

by Stephen J. Gertz

In 1813, James Caulfield published a new, expanded, three-volume edition of his  Portraits, Memoirs, and Characters, of Remarkable Persons, From the Reign of Edward the Third, to the Revolution, containing 109 engraved plates and 292 pages of accompanying text,  finishing the work originally issued in two volumes 1794-1795 with sixty plates and 214 pages of biographical material.

Caulfield's purpose was to embellish with prints the "twelfth class" section found in James Granger's Biographical History of England, from Egbert the Great to the Revolution, consisting of Characters dispersed in different Classes (2 vols., 1769), the "twelfth class" being those ‘such as lived to a great age, deformed persons, convicts, &c.’

It is, in short, an illustrated rogue's gallery of the odd, the dubious, the notorious, the eccentric, and the disreputable including:

Mother Damnable, the epitome of ugliness and the cursing, scolding, fuming, fire-flinging shrew not to confused with Mother Louse;

 

Blash De Manfre, the human Trevi Fountain commonly called the Water Spouter, who earned fame for drinking water in large quantities and regurgitating it as various sorts of wine, simple waters, beer, oil, and milk;

Elynour Rummin, the famous Ale-Wife of England, with "nose some deal hooked, and curiously crooked, never stopping but ever dropping; her skin loose and slacke, grain'd like a sacke, with a crooked back," but whose ale was renowned as A-1;

Margaret Vergh Gryifith, who had a six-inch horn protruding from her forehead;

Mrs. Mary Davis, who one-upped Margaret Vergh Gryifith with two horns growing on her head that would shed and grow again;

Francis Battaglia, alas not known as "Frankie Batts," who would devour half a peck of stones within 24-hours and six days later excrete them as sand through a colon with true grit;

John Clavell, the gentleman highwayman who wrote elegant poetry that begged mercy from judges, nobles,  and King, and was the author of A Recantation of an ill-led Life: Or, a discovery of the Highway Law (1627);

Archibald "Archie" Armstrong, the sharp-tongued master of buffoonery while jester to James I and Charles I, who earned renown and fortune as a Jacobean wise-acre, retired and became a loan-shark, and wrote A Banquet of Jeasts. Or Change of cheare: Being a collection of moderne jests. Witty ieeres. Pleasant taunts. Merry tales (1630);

Ann Turner, "a gentlewoman that from her youth had been given over to a loose kind of life, of low stature, fair visage, for outward behavior comely, but in prodigality and excess riotous," and was executed for murder;  

 Innocent Nat Witt, a poor, harmless idiot;

Moll Cut-Purse, "a woman of a masculine spirit and make [who] practised or was instrumental to almost every crime and frolick;"

Roger Crab, the sack-cloth wearing vegan hermit;

Mary Aubrey, who murdered her abusive husband then chopped him to pieces and cast him thither and yon;

Robert Fielding, gambler, bigamist, suspected murderer, and the vainest of all fops; 

Augustine Barbara Venbek, aka Barbara Urselin, whose "whole body and even her face was covered with curled hair of yellow color and very soft like wool";

Mary Carleton, who used more aliases than any knave in the Kingdom, was married three times, robbed and cheated several people, was often taken to be a German princess or at least a woman of quality, and was tried for bigamy and acquitted;

Mull'd-Sack, b. John Cottington, the genius pickpocket and miscreant who, one night while drunk, accidentally married an hermaphrodite named Aniseed-Water Robin (credited with twice impregnating himself and giving birth to a boy and a girl) in Fleet prison, "the common place for joining all rogues and whores together"; and many more.

James Caulfield (1764–1826) was an author and printseller. "Many old English portrait prints were too rare and valuable to supply the extraordinarily large demand for them. To this end, many old plates were republished and many old prints were copied. Caulfield came to specialize in prints illustrating Granger's twelfth class of people—‘such as lived to a great age, deformed persons, convicts, &c.’—whose portraits were very often the hardest to come by. In 1788 he began his work Portraits, Memoirs, and Characters of Remarkable Persons, a series of reproductions of old portrait paintings and copies of rare old or popular prints accompanied by letterpress biographies" (Oxford DNB).

(In a bibliographical aside, Granger's book made fashionable the practice of extra-illustrating historical or topological books, i.e. pasting in illustrations from other sources, which became known as "grangerizing" existing texts).

In 1819 Caulfield further extended his book to include Portraits, Memoirs, and Characters, of Remarkable Persons, from the Revolution in 1688 to the end of the Reign of George II.

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CAULFIELD, James. Portraits, Memoirs, and Characters, of Remarkable Persons, From the Reign of Edward the Third, to the Revolution. Collected From the Most Authentic Accounts Extant. A New Edition, Completing the Twelfth Class of Granger's Biographical History of England; With Many Additional Rare Portraits. London: Printed for R.S. Kirby, 1813.

New edition, expanded and completing the original two volumes 1794-95. Three tall octavo volumes (10 x 5 7/8 in; 254 x 149 mm). viii, 104; [2], [105]-198; [2], [201]-292 pp. 109 engraved plates (one folding), including engravings based upon the drawings of Marcellus Laroon (1653-1702). Publisher's original blue paper covered boards with white printed spine labels

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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Where Childrens Books Were Sold

by Stephen J. Gertz

Premises of John Harris, formerly of John Newbery, 1770 forward.

Tabart & Co, 1800 forward.

From a book published by A.K. Newman in 1829.

Stall at a fair, c. 1878.

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All images and captions, including headline, from English Children's Books 1600 to 1900 by Percy Muir (1954).
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Rats To You: An Unusual Infested Collection

By Stephen J. Gertz

"VASILEV." A Tale Depicted in Personalities: A Procession of Rats.
With Russian verse below. Lithograph. Moscow: c. 1880-90.

Rats on parade recently at Bloomsbury Auctions when the collection of Mr. David Drummond was offered for sale last week to benefit the Dorking Museum.

Mr. Drummond, a zoologist, internationally renowned expert on rodents and pest control, and adviser to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization, was into Rodentiana, providing further evidence that there is no limit to what we will collect; why not the history of rodent control and the depiction of rats in art? Forty items from his collection fell under the hammer.

Je Fume en Pleurants mes Peches.
c.1814. Napoleon weeps on St. Helena,
attended by rats.

Nappy ain't happy. He's exiled on St. Helena, all dressed up with no place to go and no one to keep him company except a rat-pack of courtiers.

ROWLANDSON. Thomas. The Apostate Jack R___,
The Political Rat Catcher. N.B. Rats Taken Alive!
London: W. Humphrey, 1784.

Catching political rats, local or national, is a job beyond any one man's ability to accomplish alone. Perhaps a rat catcher in lobbyist clothing has the best shot at luring the vile creatures into captivity and submission, a trail of greenbacks as bait.

Musical Bouquet. The Ratcatcher's Daughter.
A Serio-Comic Ballad Immortalised by Punch.
Arranged With Harmonised Chorus for the Pianoforte.
London: J. Allen, [1855].

Not long ago, in Vestminstier,
There liv'd a ratcatcher's daughter, -
But she didn't quite live in Vestminstier,
'Cause she liv'd t'other side of the vater; -
Her father caught rats, and she sold sprats,
All round and about that quarter;
And the gentlefolks all took off their hats,
To the putty little ratcatcher's daughter.
Doodle dee! doodle dum! di dum doodle da!
(The Ratcatcher's Daughter).

The Ratcatcher's Daughter came to a bad end. After finally meeting her true love she had a dream that she wouldn't see her wedding day, and, after falling into the Thames and drowning, she didn't. Doodle dee! Doodle dum! di dum doodle da! Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da life goes on, brah - but not, alas, for the ratcatcher's daughter.

Billy, The Celebrated Rat Killing Dog...
Killing 100 Rats In Five Minutes And A Half.c. 1823.

Building a Better Mousetrap Dept.:

Rat-baiting was a blood sport involving the killing of rats in a pit by a dog; hence pit bull terriers. It was a popular sport until the beginning of the 20th century. Rat-baiting involved filling a pit with rats and then placing bets on how long it would take for the dog to kill them all.

A celebrated bull terrier named Billy, weighing approximately 12 kg (26 pounds), had a proud fighting history. 

The October 1822 issue of The Sporting Magazine reported on one of Billy's bouts of ratsticuffs.

"Thursday night, Oct. 24, at a quarter before eight o'clock, the lovers of rat-killing enjoyed a feast of delight in a prodigious raticide at the Cockpit, Westminster. The place was crowded. The famous dog Billy, of rat-killing notoriety, 26 lb. weight, was wagered, for twenty sovereigns, to kill one hundred rats in twelve minutes. The rats were turned out loose at once in a 12-feet square, and the floor whitened, so that the rats might be visible to all. The set-to began, and Billy exerted himself to the utmost. At four minutes and three quarters, as the hero's head was covered with gore, he was removed from the pit, and his chaps being washed, he lapped some water to cool his throat. Again he entered the arena, and in vain did the unfortunate victims labour to obtain security by climbing against the sides of the pit, or by crouching beneath the hero. By twos and threes they were caught, and soon their mangled corpses proved the valour of the victor."

BUTLER, Augustus. Tiny, The Wonder, Weighing only 5 1/2 lbs.
Lithograph printed in color.
J. Moore, 1848.

Tiny, The Wonder, "weighing only 5 1/2 lbs," and a raticidal maniac with paws, was no slouch in the rat-killing ring, either. In 1848 Tiny was matched against 200 rats. It was estimated that he'd kill them all in three hours. He accomplished his task in fifty-four minutes and fifty seconds, the dog a deadly dervish.

GEKKO, Ogata. The Rat Of Kuroishi.
Color woodblock print. c. 1888.

Caveat Cats: They grow 'em big in Japan and The Rat of Kuroishi doesn't give a rat's ass about your anti-rat rep and will go for your throat as if it was a wheel of cheddar.

ROWLANDSON, Thomas. Cries Of London No. 1.
Buy A Trap, A Rat Trap, Buy My Rat Trap.
Hand colored aquatint.
London: R. Ackermann, 1799.

Climb ev'ry mountain, ford ev'ry stream, buy a trap from this guy, or rats will reign supreme: A forefather of the Trapp Family Singers plies his wares? "R" a rat, a female rat, so long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye you miserable little rodent...

YOSHITOSHI. Raigo And Rats In The Temple.
Color woodblock print c. 1890-1900.

When the emperor Shirakawa betrayed Raigo, a Buddhist priest, and killed him, Raigo was reincarnated as a rat, infested the temple, and destroyed the emperor's collection of books and scrolls. I think we can all agree that gnawing the emperor's face off would have been sweeter revenge than masticating his manuscripts.

Public Enemy. Rats And Mice Will Eat Your Food
And Endanger Your Health. Get Rid Of Them!
You are bound by law to notify your local authority
if rats or mice are on your premises in numbers.
Penalty For Failure To Report - £5.
c. 1930s.

So that's how a loaf of bread is scored before baking. Who knew?

William Kotzwinkle's 1976 novel Dr. Rat - the story of a lab rat who, castrated at birth, goes insane, earns the title Mad Doctor, and provides a narrative exposé of the horrors of animal experimentation - is not found in Mr. Drummond's collection. After spending his career getting rid of rats he likely has no sympathy for the nasty little buggers, in contrast to the late Michael Jackson, who had a soft-spot for the vicious leader of a pack of killer rats:



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Images courtesy of Bloomsbury Auctions, with our thanks.
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