1811 (?). Anglers of 1611. Designed by H. Bunbury, and etched by T. Rowlandson.—A pretty group, founded on the piscatorial pastoral of Izaak Walton. Venator is seated with his arm round the waist of the pretty milkmaid. Maudlin, her mother, a quaint old dame, is discoursing wisdom. Piscator is, with folded arms, leaning on his fishing-rod; at his feet are two fine trout. Peter is whipping a stream in the rear. The scenery is pretty, and the figures are neatly and expressively filled in. The design, which is by Bunbury, it is easy to recognise has gained considerable force from the spirited execution his contemporary has brought to bear on the etching. Companion to Anglers of 1811.
1811. Anglers of 1811. Designed by H. Bunbury, etched by T. Rowlandson.
1811. Patience in a Punt. Designed by H. Bunbury, etched by T. Rowlandson.
1811 (?). A Templar at his Studies. Published by T. Tegg.—The chambers of a fast member of the Bar; breakfast is on the table, and the apartment is in a litter of bottles, hunting-boots, guns, whips, law-books, briefs, papers, and general disorder. The student has evidently been to a masquerade overnight; portions of the dress of a Grand Turk are scattered about; moreover a lady is in his chambers, who is performing her toilette at a gilt mirror standing on his breakfast-table. The Templar, semi-clad, is sleepily trying to look through a bundle of briefs and law papers.
1811. A Family Piece. (The Portrait Painter.) Designed by H. Bunbury, engraved by T. Rowlandson.
1811. A Barber's Shop. H. Bunbury del., Rowlandson sculp.—Two customers, already polished off, are putting on their cravats at the glass, and a stout old gentleman is in a shaving-chair having his hair dressed. A brace of dogs are quarrelling over a wig, which they are worrying like a rat and pulling different ways. A client is being lathered and is under operation, while a gentleman, who has been shaved, is wiping off the remains of the soapsuds. This design, one of the latest due to the hand of the gifted Henry Bunbury, [25] was also engraved on a larger scale by James Gillray: it was the last plate upon which he was able to work, and it proceeded but slowly, being touched in rare lucid intervals as his increasing madness permitted.
The etching, as executed by Gillray, bears the date 1811 in one corner, and to this is added the date of its deferred publication, May 15, 1818. The title given on the folio engraving is Interior of a Barber's Shop in Assize Time. The great caricaturist carried this plate, the last work on copper by the hand of Gillray, as notified upon the print, so far as his intermittent returns of reason would allow him. As Gillray died June 1, 1815, when the plate was evidently unfinished, this is probably one of the caricaturist's coppers which, as we have already related, were handed to George Cruikshank, another departed worthy, to complete. The unexpected death of the veteran has prevented the writer verifying this circumstance, although it is probably one of the plates—probably the most important as to size—which Cruikshank held in recollection when he informed the writer he considered that the most flattering testimonial which had been paid him in his long life was being selected, while a young man, to complete the engravings Gillray had left unfinished under the painful circumstances of his mental aberration, as already detailed. (See The Works of James Gillray, the Caricaturist, with the Story of his Life and Times, page 19, Introduction; and, further, the reduced engraving, from this plate (1811), page 370, the Works).
1811 (?). Modern Antiques.—The cabinet of an antiquarian, richly filled with supposititious relics of the past. On a shelf is a row of Etruscan vases; bacchic masks and terminal gods are ranged on the walls; the chief features of the collection are a gathering of Egyptian deities and some magnificent sarcophagi. The satire, in some degree, seems to hint at Sir William Hamilton (then deceased) and the fair Emma.
An old antiquary, decrepit and bent, is peering at the shapely proportions of an Egyptian figure bearing a close resemblance to life. The chief incident of the picture is centred in a mummy's coffin, tenanted for the time, like a sentry-box, by a gallant young officer, who is embraced, behind the lid of his temporary resting-place, by a lady, who, like all the beauties designed by the artist, is represented of fine proportions and somewhat free graces. The inamorata has thrown down a work which she has evidently studied to some purpose, Loves of the Gods—embellished with cuts, and she is taking the opportunity to make a practical application of her readings.