Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

A noble lord, on an approaching peace, too busy to attend to the expenditure of a million of the public money / JS ff.

James Gillray
1756-1815
A noble lord, on an approaching peace, too busy to attend to the expenditure of a million of the public money / JS ff.
Published

London : Pub'd March 12th 1787 by R. Phillips, Southwk., [1787]

aquatint & etching
image: 249 x 366 mm; plate mark: 275 x 379 mm; sheet: 271 x 378 mm
Peel 3322
Notes
Counterfeit signature; print by Gillray. Cf. BM Satires.
Library's copy trimmed within plate mark.
Provenance

Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.

Summary

Lord Lansdowne sits at a small writing-table, pen in hand, a number of papers before him. Three caricatured Jewish men stand at left, but he turns with his enigmatic smile towards a French post-boy (far right), a grotesque dwarfish man with long queue and jack-boots holding his whip and hat, who holds out to him with a cunning smile a paper inscribed: 'My dear Lord Paris 7th Jany 1783 I am happy to hear you have so nearly concluded your Alley Arrangements. The Preliminaries shall be signed coute que coute by the Time you desire, & you may rely on the Courier's arrival on the Eve of the 23d yours truly Billy Paradice [William Eden.]' Under Lansdowne's elbow is a paper inscribed 'Memorandums Pay off the Mortgage on Jesuits Colledge in Berkeley Square - Pay off Solomons any for 500£ pr Annm Inquire what Tayt will take for my Bond for 3000£ given for furniture sold at Christyes'. The foremost Jewish man holds out to Lansdowne a paper ... On a shelf, inscribed 'Waste Paper', in the upper right corner of the design, are three large bundles of papers: 'Ordnance Estimates', 'State of the National Debt', and 'Civil List'; two piles of documents hang from the shelf. On the wall above Lansdowne's head are two bust portraits: 'John Calvin', wearing a steeple-crowned hat, gown, and bands, and 'Ignatius Loyola', a profile portrait of Burke wearing a Jesuit's biretta. Cf. British Museum online catalogue.

Associated names
Phillips, R., publisher.
Peel, Robert, 1788-1850, former owner.
Classification
Department
Century prints