New catalogue n°126, Grosvenor Prints
Grosvenor Prints uploaded Catalogue 126 to its website!
Highlights include:
Cover:



[Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville] The Wounded Lion. ”and now, all the sculking nerd of the forest, some out of Insolence, others in Revenge, some, in fine, upon one Pretence / ”some upon another, fell upon him by Consent. – but nothing went so near the Heart of him in his Distress, as to / ”find himself batter’d by the Heel of an Ass.” – Vide Aesop’s Fables.[James Gillray.]Pub.d July 16th 1805. by H. Humphrey. 27 St James’s Street.Coloured etching. 260 x 380mm (10¼ x 15″), with large margins, watermarked ‘J Ruse 1802’. Nicks in edges of margins. A satire in defence of Melville as First Lord of the Admiralty, depicting him as a lion wounded by grapeshot fired by John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent. As he lies bleeding he is attacked by various animals, including a fox, rats with lawyers’ wigs (Jekyll, Erskine, and Adair) and a snake (Grey). The grapeshot has also struck Britannia, who slumps against a tree. Dundas became First Lord in 1804 despite an inquiry regarding financial misconduct from his term as Treasurer of the Admiralty (1782-1800) was still ongoing. Gillray’s point is that Britain’s interests during time of war were being damaged for political ends. BM Satires 10421. [Ref: 60357] £950.00

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