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1747373383Paris c.1747. Unframed Print. Very Good Condition. This exuberant allegorical engraving commemorates the 1747 marriage of Louis Dauphin of France. Conceived for official celebration it exalts monarchical authority divine favour and national elation exemplifying how Ancien Rgime print culture elevated dynastic ritual into public pageant. The elaborate frontispiece paired with its explanatory text on the verso unites classical deities personified nations and the city of Paris in a celestial scene that proclaims harmony between France and Saxony through sacred endorsement and political alliance. Engraving 37 x 55 cms; sheet 39 x 58 cms. Text is in French. Category: PRINTS : Antiquarian Interest; French Language; Printed before 1800; French Language; Special Features. This item may require more postage than the rates shown for delivery outside the UK. If extra postage is required we will contact you before processing your order and you will be given the details and option to decline the extra cost. unknown
17655799BB1765. London printed by assignment from Thomas Hope for T. Lowndes . 1765. 12°. 2 309 pp. 1 p. of 3 pp. advertisements. With one engraved title and 1 engraved frontispiece. Contemporary leather rubbed and bumped. Third edition first published 1755. - Flying endpapers missing. hardcover
18005629London: S. W. Fores 1800. First edition. Illustrated hand-colored broadside measuring 270 x 400mm and printed to verso only. Faint offsetting to recto and faint traces of mounting to corners. In all a Fine example of this visual satire commenting on the phenomenon of younger men seeking marriage with elderly widows for their own financial gain -- and the cultural anxiety surrounding the marital sexuality of such brides. Unrecorded in ESTC and OCLC we have located two examples of the present work at the British Museum and Yale. <br /> <br /> The present broadside draws together a wide matrix of debates and social anxieties surrounding the economic and sexual status of widows and the financial motivations for marriage among second sons and men of the middle class. Though women were more frequently forced into experiencing marriage as a form of 'honorable prostitution' in which their physical desirability served as their key for accessing wealth and stability under coverture it was increasingly acknowledged that large swaths of young men also suffered under this system. And while widows could escape the system -- shifting from the disempowered femme covert to the more legally independent femme sole on their husbands' deaths -- there was both a social fantasy of reinserting them into the marriage market as a means for regaining control over their money and bodies as well as a social anxiety about their ability to corrupt through the range of knowledge and authority they gained through previous marital experience. Here a young man walks his aging crone down the aisle. Ornately clad and expressing her anticipation for "the comforts of matrimony" she is ridiculed by the ministers at the pulpit who posit that if "matrimony was first ordained.for a remedy against fornication" then "the remedy will be worse than the disease" in this instance. Untroubled the young groom focuses on the land deeds bank notes and jewelry accounts which stuff his pockets -- assets which will legally become his after the ceremony and which serve as his marital comforts. Meanwhile two young women observe from the sidelines one of them planning her future with the groom after his aging bride's eventual demise. "Those jewels will look better on me than on the last owner" she notes as her companion whispers hopefully "you'll let me take a morning ride with you sometimes."<br /> <br /> A visual commentary on the financial and social issues surrounding marriage under coverture which Daniel Defoe would deride as "matrimonial whoredom."<br /> <br /> <br /> British Museum 1935.0522.8.109. Yale Center for British Art B1974.12.328. S. W. Fores unknown
17326120London: Printed for T. Dormer 1732. First edition. Modern quarter morocco over cloth with gilt to spine. Measuring 180 x 111mm and collating complete including frontis folding game board and concluding woodcut: 2 62 2. From the collection of stage magician Ricky Jay with his bookplate to upper pastedown. Top margin trimmed close with consistent loss to running headers and occasional loss to page numbers with no other text effected. Pages somewhat toned with minor marginal chips but otherwise unmarked. A scarce satire playing both on the rising popularity of get-rich-quick schemes and on the economics of the marriage market the present is the only example to appear in the auction record. OCLC locates only twelve institutional copies. The present is the only example currently in trade.<br /> <br /> A Scheme for a New Lottery warns readers against the dangers posed by get-rich-quick schemes targeting large-scale scams like the recently burst South Sea Bubble sometimes called the world's first Ponzi scheme and the pawn-broking swindle of the so-called Charitable Corporation. These scams were appealing to ordinary people at a time when few were "successful in using wealth from trade to found a landed family" Rapp. Mocking both the conmen and the conned A Scheme satirically proposes "Another Lottery which may prove a general benefit to all concern'd; as there is no better Remedy for a Bite from a Mad Dog than the Liver of the Dog that bit." The proposed lottery filled with abstruse rules and convoluted promises ensures that the cycle continues.<br /> <br /> A Scheme also mocks marriage as a scam in which women could either make a wise match in a rich man or lose it all by marrying down. The lottery provides "Fifty Thousand tickets to be deliver'd to Maids or Widows or any that appear to be such" in the hopes of winning a financially stable husband represented by the tickets drawn. Such a match could be a good one: "A Ware-House Keeper with the Salary of a Hundred Pounds" or "the Governour." It could also by virtue of lottery be a loss: "2 Scotchmen both Pedlars 500 Broken Booksellers" and a range of other ruinous bounders are also listed as prizes. For those who desire an advance attempt the folding game bound in the book invites blindfolded women to stick a pin in the board to claim their prize. The present copy was played gently with pin marks revealing a Blacksmith and a Valet de Chambre among those husbands won<br /> <br /> The popularity of A Scheme resulted in a reissue the same year with a canceled title page as The Ladies Lottery and falsely attributed to Swift.<br /> <br /> ESTC N20921. Printed for T. Dormer unknown
