The female agent

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Charles Williams
1796-1866
The female agent
etching
image: 148 x 226 mm; plate mark: 343 x 244 mm; sheet: 359 x 260 mm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 1933
Published: 
[London] : Pubd. March 1809 by Walker No. 7 Cornhill, March 1809.
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Notes: 

Lettered with publication line at bottom "Pubd. March 1809 by Walker No. 7 Cornhill."
The verses are bordered by spears which serve as posts for plump purses, symmetrically attached to them.

Summary: 

Mrs. Clarke, seated on a dais, receives applicants for commissions who advance through a doorway (left). She sits on a drum, wearing a cocked hat and military sash over a white dress, and holds up a sword. A short fat soldier holds over her head a Union flag with the white horse of Hanover. Two soldiers stand at attention with fixed bayonets behind her, and a fat trumpeter blows his trumpet. Another Union flag, without the white horse, flies from the corner of the large dais. On the wall hangs a notice: 'Half-pay Commissions at Half Price for Ready Money'. The applicants press forward in a bunch, headed by a fat and gouty 'cit' hobbling on two sticks, behind whom is a chimneysweep. The first of three verses: 'Come all you brave Fellows who wish for Promotion. ... My Master wants Money, & so does his Clarke. / But forget not &c.'

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