Category Archives: Prints

Satirical highlights

Posted on July 13, 2012 by mercedes-c

Douce’s satirical prints are being catalogued at the moment. With only one more folder to go, I have chosen the highlights below -they loosely relate to some topics of current interest: bad weather, economic recession, and major public celebrations involving … Continue reading →

Posted in Drawings, Everyday life, Prints, Satirical prints | Comments Off

Douce’s evening readings

Posted on July 4, 2012 by mercedes-c

In the evening of 26 September 1830, Douce was reading Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe. Scott was a friend of Douce: in 1804, he had sent him a copy of his edition of the medieval romance Sir Tristrem (now in the Bodleian). … Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquaries, Games, Literature, Prints, Romances | Comments Off

The spiritual Quixote

Posted on June 19, 2012 by mercedes-c

Among Douce’s satirical prints, there is a full set of caricatures of clerics after designs by George Moutard (or Murgatroyd) Woodward (1760?-1809). When Mary Dorothy George catalogued the five prints from the series in the collection of the British Museum, … Continue reading →

Posted in Literature, Prints, Religion, Satirical prints | Comments Off

Poetry and Astronomy

Posted on June 6, 2012 by mercedes-c

I missed the transit of Venus earlier this morning. Transit of Venus I thought that special equipment was required but, apparently, all you need is a piece of paper -or so Jim Naughtie said in the Today programme. He was … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Games, Natural history, Poetry, Prints, Science, Uncategorized | Comments Off

French Prints and Fans

Posted on May 30, 2012 by mercedes-c

My colleague Cath Casley has noticed a pretty fan in the Ashmolean’s collection which seems to relate to some of the prints in which Douce was interested -I am copying her message below: Found this fan within the collection of … Continue reading →

Posted in Broadsides, Everyday life, Festivals, Napoleon, Prints, Relics, Religion | Comments Off

The Prodigal Son Sifted

Posted on May 22, 2012 by mercedes-c

Despite their various nationalities and the different periods in which they lived, the authors of the satirical prints collected by Douce seemed to share their belief that ‘things ain’t what they used to be’. When seen together, however, the prints … Continue reading →

Posted in Broadsides, Popular prints, Prints, Satirical prints | Comments Off

Scandinavian Noir

Posted on May 1, 2012 by mercedes-c

Long before subtitled Danish drama reached these shores*, Douce was already championing Scandinavian story-telling of a different sort, as transcribed by his friend the Danish scholar and antiquary Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin (1752-1829). On 28 April 1819, Douce wrote in his … Continue reading →

Posted in Literature, Networks, Poetry, Prints, Uncategorized, Witchcraft | Comments Off

Douce and Flaxman

Posted on April 26, 2012 by mercedes-c

Douce counted the artist John Flaxman (1755-1826) among his friends: numerous gifts from the sculptor are recorded in his Collecta and Flaxman’s Compositions from the Tragedies of Aeschylus (1795) was one of the books bequeathed by Douce to the Bodleian. … Continue reading →

Posted in Literature, Prints, Satirical prints | Comments Off

The ringball alley

Posted on April 4, 2012 by mercedes-c

After cataloguing Douce’s prints of ‘Cricket, Racquets &c., Bat and Ball’, I have just started working on his images of ‘Billiards, Bowling, [Quoits], Skittles &c’. The first few mounts contained the usual Doucean mix of engravings from various Dutch books … Continue reading →

Posted in Everyday life, Games, Prints, Sports | Comments Off

Palm Sunday

Posted on April 3, 2012 by mercedes-c

Douce was very interested in religious ceremonies and devotional practices and hence he gathered a remarkable number of prints on this subject. However, the only depictions of Easter parades that I have found among his prints are images of Palm Sunday … Continue reading →

Posted in Everyday life, Festivals, Prints, Religion | Comments Off