A barber's shop adorn'd we see, with monster's, news and poverty ... [print] / E. Heemskerck Invt. et Pinxt. ; Toms Sculp.

Accession number: 
PML 145850.216
Author: 
Toms, W. H. (William Henry), ca. 1700-ca. 1750, etcher.
Published: 
[London : s.n., between 1730 and 1745]
Description: 
1 print : etching ; image: 334 x 287 mm; sheet: 370 x 306 mm
Credit: 
Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987.
Notes: 

Title from item.
Eight lines of verse in two columns below: A barber's shop adorn'd we see, with Monster's, news and poverty ... Then palms your Cole, & scraping Smiles, And gives a Bill to cure the Piles.
Inserted as item 216 into an album of collected prints, broadsides, drawings, and miscellaneous single sheet items, assembled by former owner Joseph Ames and entitled "Emblematical and satirical prints on persons and professions" (PML 145850).
Library's copy trimmed within plate mark.

Variant Title: 

Barber's shop adorned we see

Provenance: 
From the library of Gordon N. Ray.
Summary: 

Print shows a country barber-surgeon's shop in which the people have been given the heads of animals. At center left, an older woman with the head of a cat, is being bled by a man with the head of an elephant whose hand is on her left breast while a monkey-headed boy holds a basin to catch the blood spurting from her arm. Behind them a man, with a boar's head wearing a work-apron reads from the Grub Street Journal to a man with the head of an ass and a bell around his neck. In the center a catiman sitting on a barrel holding a shaving dish has his whiskers trimmed by a barber with an ape's head on top of which is a flamboyant hat with long feathers. An ape-man behind waits his turn, and a man with two wooden legs and a crutch leaves through an open door. Overhead on the left is a projecting sign from which hangs a board showing an owl beneath which is written "Shave & Bleed for A Peny". Stuffed creatures hang from the ceiling: a grotesque fish, an eel with gaping moth, and an ape. The wall at the rear has been chalked with tallies and three wigs hang from it. A table in the foreground on the right has pulled teeth and various barbers' instruments on it. A hat with a large feather lies on the ground.

Classification: 
Department: