Beschreibung:

CRUIKSHANK, George and Robert (Isaac) CRUIKSHANK. The Attorney General's Charges against Queen Caroline , [1820-1821].
CRUIKSHANK, George and Robert (Isaac) CRUIKSHANK. The Attorney General's Charges against Queen Caroline , [1820-1821]. A collection of 30 original watercolours, most caricatures, and 26 hand-coloured etchings of the same designs published by G. Humphrey, St. James's, many of the watercolours signed George Cruikshank in pencil, and with his marginal annotations, the collection displayed in a total of 36 window mounts, with the smaller watercolours and engravings paired together (mounts 380 x 560mm; larger caricatures 295 x 224mm. approx; smaller caricatures 290 x 230mm. approx). Conserved in two blue cloth clamshell folio cases, with a further two prints mounted on inside lids, gilt lettered with the above title on front of lid, longitudinal morocco gilt label on spines. Provenance : purchased at Park Bernet, 5 March 1938. ORIGINAL CRUIKSHANK CARICATURES RELATED TO 'ONE OF THE MOST SPECTACULAR AND DRAMATIC EVENTS OF THE CENTURY'. George III, who was the uncle as well as the father-in-law of Queen Caroline, died on 29 January 1820. The months that followed witnessed 'the apogee of the caricature' with the new sovereign's estranged wife returning to England in June, and a Bill of Pains and Penalties to deprive her of the style and rights of Queen and grant the king a divorce being introduced to the Lords in August. The Queen's progress to Westminster, attended by cheering crowds, is depicted unsatirically in one of the Cruikshank watercolours. However, although George Cruikshank is considered to have been a supporter of the Queen, the plates he designed soon after her arrival were, as Robert Patten points out, 'highly critical' ( George Cruikshanks' Life, Times and Art , 1992, I, p. 170); the same is true of the original designs and plates in the present collection, even though many were published between January and June 1821 after the 'trial' had been abandoned. They are savage, often the more savage in their engraved than in their original watercolour version. The majority depict the Queen in ludicrous situations either with her Italian lover, Bartolomeo Bergami, or with her counsellor, the radical alderman Mathew Wood, who is associated with 'mother Wood', a notorious brothel keeper. A FINE AND HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT COLLECTION.