Price: $2,950.00
SKU: 101963
ARTIST: Louis Philippe Boitard
PUBLISHER: Publish’d according to act of Parliamt. June 1753, by Fenwick Bull, Map & Printseller at ye White Horse on Ludgate Hill.
MEDIUM: Copper plate engraving
DATE: 1753
EDITION SIZE: Sheet size 14 5/8 x9 3/8" (37.2 x 23.8 cm)
DESCRIPTION: "One of the more remarkable illustrations of an entertainer ever recorded"<br>Ricky Jay.<br><br> Jay suggests that 'it is thought that the famous description of a wire walker in Tobias Smollett's novel Humphrey Clinker was inspired by this engraving. The character Winifred Jenkins reports:<br><br> "I saw such tumbling and dancing on ropes and wires that I was frightened and ready to go into a fit. I tho't it was all enchantment, and believing myself bewitched, began to cry. You knows as how the witches in Wales fly on broom-sticks; but here was flying without any broomstick or thing in the varsal world, and firing of pistols in the air and blowing of trumpets and singing, and rolling of wheelbarrows on a wire (God bless us!) no thicker than a sewing thread; that to be sure they must deal with the Devil." [Jay, op. cit. p. 34]<br><br> Two columns of text: This gentleman (who performs on the slack wire what neither Caratha the Turk, or any other would presume to attempt in that surprising art) being unhappily involved in the late Rebellion was obliged, with several of his countrymen, to fly to France as a place of refuge, and as he danced perfectly well, flattered himself that talent would subsist him as he was then destitute, but found there to his great disappointment few persons in that class who even got a comfortable subsistence, the French being more inclined to re-establish their Marine, than encourage a set of useless caperers, and England, the only happy climate for those volatile geniuses, where they wallowed in luxury. Necessity then prompted him to turn to equilibrist, being kindly assisted by nature with an extraordinary gift of agility, the success for which this print exhibits, whereby he is rendered capable of gaining a genteel subsistence, and enabled to remit proper sums to his distant wife and six children. Imprimis, with a pair of French post boots, under the soles of which are fastened quart bottles with the necks downwards, he exhibits several feats of activity on the slack wire, after which he poies a wheel on his right toe, on the summit of which is placed a spike whereon is balanced by the edge of a pewter plate; on that a board with fifteen wine glasses; at the top, a glass globe with a wheaten straw erect on the same, he fixes a sharp-pointed sword on the tip of his nose, on the pummel of which he balances a tobacco pipe, and on the bowl two eggs erect; with his left fore-finger he sustains a chair with a dog sitting in it, and two feathers kept erect, on the nobs and to show his strength of his wrist there are two weights of 100 each, fastened to the feet of the chair, after which a French horn and trumpet are brought him, both which he sounds distinctly at the same instant two different tunes, the one being the “Banks of Tweed,” the other not proper to mention, as a proof of his certainty not falling he places on the stage, under the wire, several sword-blades with the points upwards.<br><br>
ADDITIONAL INFO:
CONDITION: Overall in good condition. Trimmed to plate on tope and sides. Small fox mark in right side of image. On laid paper backed with japon.
REFERENCE: Exemplars, p. 306; EE, pp. 34-35: British Museum 1851,0308.444
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