Mary Cruikshank
"The Treasury Spectre- or the Head of the Nation
in a Queer Situation"
English caricature
circa 1800.
Handcolored
aquatint Engraving on chainlinked watermarked
paper
The text reads:
Man on Left:
"Looks, be that there the King's great
high Minister what the man who taxed old Dobbin"
His Friend: "Ay sure domún Swish
un in our Mill Pond"
The Minister: "D- the cap - D- the french,
d- the War. Oh my Stomach"
(The Treasury
Minister wears a band a round his stomach that
reads: Strengthening Plaister for the Conscience")
"Come,
come you must not be so obstreperous put on
your cap. Your stomach will be very easy when
this Qualm is over. Here take a sip lad."
Signed in the
Plate: Designed by Mary Cruikshank (on
the banister, just above the Minister's cap)
This is most likely a slightly
reduced reprint of Cruikshank's work from the
London und Paris newsletter which was
published in Germany at the beginning of the
19th Century.