Confucius the Second, or, A new sun rising in the Asiatic world!

Image not available
William Holland
Confucius the Second, or, A new sun rising in the Asiatic world!
etching
image: 233 x 331 mm; sheet: 251 x 331 mm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 2419
Published: 
[London] : Pubd according to the Act by Willm Holland N° 66 Drury lane, Dec. 12 1783
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Notes: 

Title from item.
Library's copy trimmed within plate mark.

Summary: 

Fox as the rising sun, his head, smiling, satisfied, fills the circle of the sun, whose rays are shed over the sky, and fall upon two groups of persons divided by the River Ganges. On the nearer side (right) a group of Indians make obeisance to the sun with gestures of ecstatic gratitude: a kneeling prince with a feathered turban, bends low with his hands on his breast; he is "The unfortunate Prince, Cheit Sing" (words etched on the lower margin). Next him are four kneeling women, three young, one old; they hold out their arms with expressions of gratitude towards Fox; the most prominent turns to point out their benefactor to two young children who kneel at her side. They are "The plundered Princesses, the Begums of Oude". Behind them (right) an Indian bows his head to the ground. He is the foremost of a crowd whose arms are stretched out towards Fox, the faces of some being Nubian in type. Behind and approaching this group is a procession headed by Burke and North each on an elephant. Burke (left), dressed as a Jesuit, points at Fox, looking towards North, who stretches out his right arm towards the rising sun; in his left hand he holds a book, "Sublime and Beaut[iful]", to show that he is the author of "A Philosophical Enquiry. . ." . The howdah cloth of North's elephant is inscribed "Plunder restored 1[7]83", on the animal's back is a bale of goods. Behind Burke and North, apparently mounted on elephants, stand two men blowing trumpets to which are attached fringed banners, one inscribed "The Trumpet shall soun'd in the East and man shall be called to Judgment." On the farther side of the river a procession of "plunderers", officers of the East India Company, being led by a man with an axe on his shoulder, he holds a chain which is attached to the wrists of the victims. They are "Plunderers doomed to Execution when the new Sun [Fox] gains his Meridian." Cf. British Museum online catalog.

Century: 
Classification: 
Department: