A smuggling machine, or, A convenient Cos(au)way for a man in miniature

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Hannah Humphrey
A smuggling machine, or, A convenient Cos(au)way for a man in miniature
etching touched with the rocker
image: 245 x 217 mm; plate mark: 277 x 238 mm; sheet: 293 x 254 mm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 2354
Published: 
[London] : Publish'd Jany 1782 by H. Humphry New Bond Street N° 18, [1782]
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Inscription: 

Inscribed in pencil below image: Dr. Taylor of Westminster.

Notes: 

Title from item.

Summary: 

Print shows Richard Cosway, R.A., standing under the wide hooped petticoat of a tall lady (his wife, Maria), who puts her arms round him. His head and shoulders emerge from the petticoat slightly below the level of her waist; his face is in profile looking upwards. His right hand clutches her cloak, his left, is round her waist. She wears a flat ribbon-trimmed hat, and looks down at him saying, "Tis geting nothing - nay - tisgeting worse than nothing." In the background, on; the wall (right), is a picture of a little man wearing a bag-wig and sword, climbing up a ladder which rests on the breast of a woman. Beneath it is engraved in six lines: "Lowliness is Young Ambitions Ladder ... By which he did assend. Shak. Jul. Caesar."

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