4
[by William Austin]
Pubd as ye Act Directs May 1st 1773.
Etching, J. Whatman watermark. 270 x 400mm (10½ x 15¾"), with large margins.
An elderly man with a gouty leg walks on crutches, followed by his tall wife with a witch-like face with hooked nose and protruding bearded chin. Among the other figures that walk along the sea front is a man marked 'The Rabbit Doctor St A-', with a rabbit under his arm. This is a caricature of Nathaniel St André (c.1680-1776), a Swiss surgeon who was appointed as surgeon and anatomist to the royal household by George I in 1723. However, in 1726 he supported the claim of Mary Toft that she had given birth to fourteen rabbits, even publishing an account. When she admitted the deception St André lost his Royal salary. Later one of his patients died and he married his widow the same day. The pair moved to Southampton in 1750. From a set of twelve prints by William Austin (1721/33-1820), drawing-master and engraver. Austin taught caricature to amateurs and this series, which mocked several well-known personages (as did its dedicatee, the actor Samuel Foote) contains some of the most lively English caricatures of the period between Hogarth and the late Georgian satire of Gillray and Rowlandson.
BM Satires 5115.
[Ref: 63631] £290.00
Pubd as ye Act Directs May 1st 1773.
Etching, J. Whatman watermark. 270 x 400mm (10½ x 15¾"), with large margins.
An elderly man with a gouty leg walks on crutches, followed by his tall wife with a witch-like face with hooked nose and protruding bearded chin. Among the other figures that walk along the sea front is a man marked 'The Rabbit Doctor St A-', with a rabbit under his arm. This is a caricature of Nathaniel St André (c.1680-1776), a Swiss surgeon who was appointed as surgeon and anatomist to the royal household by George I in 1723. However, in 1726 he supported the claim of Mary Toft that she had given birth to fourteen rabbits, even publishing an account. When she admitted the deception St André lost his Royal salary. Later one of his patients died and he married his widow the same day. The pair moved to Southampton in 1750. From a set of twelve prints by William Austin (1721/33-1820), drawing-master and engraver. Austin taught caricature to amateurs and this series, which mocked several well-known personages (as did its dedicatee, the actor Samuel Foote) contains some of the most lively English caricatures of the period between Hogarth and the late Georgian satire of Gillray and Rowlandson.
BM Satires 5115.
[Ref: 63631] £290.00