Caricatures, Monkey, Humor, Caricature, Thomas Rowlandson
No title. Ministry of All Talents. The actual title under which this engraving was published was "All the Talents"
Monkey shown as genius with many if not ALL talents.
Stipple engraving by Thomas Rowlandson.
This refers to the the ministries of Great Britain, who pretend to fulfill every possible wish.
The caricature was published as a single print, dated 1807
London, 1807
Original antique print
Print is trimmed to edges and laid down on paper.
Image:17,2 x 11,5 cm (ca. 6.8 x 4.5")
Frontispiece to 'All the Talents', 18th edition, satirical verses by 'Polypus', i.e. E. S. Barrett, attacking the late Ministry. The print (Hogarthian in manner) has little relation to the verses, and is probably adapted from an earlier satire, perhaps on Bute. A creature with the body of a man and the face of an ape, with a tail, tramples on burning papers. It wears spectacles, a large wig, bands, old-fashioned laced coat (with a star), and tattered breeches. On one foot is a shoe; the left. leg is in a large jack-boot (? originally an emblem of Bute). In the r. hand is a crozier with which he pulls down two books from a shelf: 'Magna Charter' and 'Coronation Oath'. Behind him a musket inscribed 'Army', the barrel pointing upwards, is firing a blast at the falling books. His left hand rests on a book or ledger, open on a book-stand, in which he writes with the feathered end of his pen. The page is headed 'Finance'; from the book hangs a paper: 'Country Dances'. The burning papers are inscribed 'Negotiation' [bis], 'Sinecures'. He is smoking a pipe from which thick clouds of smoke rise and obscure a profile bust portrait of Pitt.
