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Category Archives: Prints
Bonasone in red
Over fifty prints by Giulio Bonasone from Douce’s collection were transferred to the Ashmolean in 1863. At the time, they were integrated in the main sequence and they can now be found under the printmaker’s name. The print below, however, … Continue reading
Posted in Collections and Collectors, Colour, Engravings, History of printmaking, Prints, Religion
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A peep at the balloon
On Saturday, 7 July 1810, the Oxford-born chemist James Sadler (1753-1828) took part in the celebrations of the installation of the new Chancellor of the University by ascending in a balloon from Merton fields with his fourteen-year-old son, Windham. The … Continue reading
Posted in Aerostation, Everyday life, London, Popular prints, Prints, Satirical prints, Science, Uncategorized, Woodcuts
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Parlour game
Bonnets are everywhere due to the bicentenary of Pride and Prejudice*. This blog could not resist the temptation to join in, especially when the said article of apparel features so prominently in Douce’s folders of costumes, where the fashion plate … Continue reading
Posted in Colour, Costumes, Everyday life, Fashion, Games, Literature, Prints, Wood-engravings
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A medley print
Medley prints like the one below really capture the sense of mixture, the hotchpotch quality, and the endless referencing that characterize Douce’s folders: Unlike the impression in the BM, Douce’s print bears the inscription ‘Designed, and Engraven, and Sold, by S: … Continue reading
Posted in Ballads, Books, Colour, History of printmaking, Medley print, Prints, Woodcuts
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The Star of the Kings
A few months ago, I came across the image below while cataloguing a series of prints of the months from a late seventeenth-century almanac in Douce’s collection: The man pouring water from a vase next to a fountain in the … Continue reading
Posted in Almanacs, Carols, Engravings, Everyday life, Feast, Festivals, Prints, Seasons, Stipple, Zodiac
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A tale for Christmas 1779
On 15 January 1821, Douce wrote in his Book of Coincidences that he “had had a strange dream about Lady Craven”. Elizabeth Berkeley (1750-1828), who would become margravine of Brandenburg-Ansbach-Bayreuth after her second marriage following the death of Lord Craven in … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Manuscripts, Prints
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The ruff-setter
In 1817, the April issue of The Critical Review carried an article on Philip Stubbes’s The Anatomie of Abuses (1583), in which Douce and his print Der Kragen Setzer are mentioned with regard to extravagant fashions and to the moral … Continue reading
Posted in Costumes, Engravings, Everyday life, Fashion, Prints, Satirical prints, Shakespeare
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Britannia Excisa
This satire on Robert Walpole’s 1733 Excise Bill was misplaced (maybe by Thomas Dodd, who did some rearranging after Douce’s death) and kept among Douce’s wood-engravings, which I have been cataloguing this week: The print has been cut from a … Continue reading
Posted in Ballads, Broadsides, Collections and Collectors, Networks, Prints, Satirical prints, Tax, Woodcuts
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“The Puck of Commentators”
One of Douce’s most assiduous correspondents in the 1790s was the Shakespeare scholar George Steevens (1736-1800), of whom the DNB says that “his wit and the associated learning […] earned him the name of the Puck of Commentators”: From his … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Collections and Collectors, Costumes, Dance of Death, Everyday life, Literature, Paintings, Prints, Shakespeare
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“To the friend of curious and interesting things”
Among Douce’s portraits of artists, there is a silhouette of the Swiss engraver, publisher, and art dealer Christian von Mechel (1737-1817): The print is annotated with Mechel’s dedication to Douce: I beg dear Mr Douce, the friend of curious and … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Dance of Death, History of printmaking, Portraits, Prints
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