A companion print to bmsat 8656. Grenville stands on a hearth-rug, his back to a blazing fire (right), holding up to his face an open book inscribed: 'fundamental principles of government for 1795', at which he looks sideways and near-sightedly. He raises his coat-tails to warm his bulky posteriors, his left hand in his breeches pocket. On the chimney-piece lie two books: 'court cookery' and 'locke on human understanding'. Hanging above it is a 'map of british victories on the continent' on which confused scrawls are depicted. On the back wall (left) is a bracket supporting a bowl of gold-fish, above which is a picture of the 'treasury bench': three ministers seated as if in parliament, in back view with their coats drawn aside to show their bulky posteriors; the wall of the treasury forms a background. Beneath the title is etched in two columns:
'"lord-pogy boasts no common share of head;
"what plenteous stores of knowledge may contain
"the spacious tenement of pogy's brain!
"nature in all her dispensations wise,
"who form'd his head-piece of so vast a size,
hath not, 'tis true, neglected to bestow
its due proportion on the part below;
and hence we reason, that to serve the state
his top & bottom, may have equal weight. "' 13 june 1795
hand-coloured etching. Date: 1795. Dimensions: Height: 350 mm; Width: 250 mm. Medium: paper. Depicted People: William Wyndham Grenville, Baron Grenville. Collection: British Museum. A keen-sighted politician warming his imagination (BM J,3.3)
Loading...
