A Birmingham toast, as given on the 14th of July by the ---- revolution society

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James Gillray
1756-1815
A Birmingham toast, as given on the 14th of July by the ---- revolution society
hand-colored etching
image: 268 x 495 mm; plate: 278 x 513 mm; sheet: 293 x 518 mm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 2738
Published: 
[London] : Pubd. by S.W. Fores, N. 3 Piccadilly, 1791 July 23d.
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Summary: 

Six men, seated and standing behind a table on which are decanters, punch-bowl, &c, drink a treasonous toast. This is given by Priestley (left) who stands in profile to the right, holding up an empty Communion dish and a brimming chalice, saying, "The------ [King's] Head, here!" Fox sits in the centre, raising his glass, his right hand on his heart. On his right. sits Sir Cecil Wray. On the extreme left Sheridan bends forward, avidly filling his glass from a decanter of Sherry. On Fox's left sits Horne Tooke. He grasps a decanter of 'Holland[s]'. On the extreme right sits Dr. Lindsey, with (like Sheridan) a drink-blotched face. Before him are two decanters of 'Brandy'. Behind Horne Tooke and Lindsey stands a group of sanctimonious dissenters, with lank hair, much caricatured. On the wall above Fox's head is a picture of St. Paul's Cathedral; from the façade emerge the heads of three pigs feeding from a trough.

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