Grosvenor Prints

A selection of hoaxes and swindlers- everything from giving birth to rabbits to raising funds for non-existent countries. The Irish writer Richard Head (c.1637-1686?) wrote a fictional autobiography of a professional thief, The English Rogue (1665), to supplement his income (and finance his passion for gambling). But he is not included here for his imaginative gifts so much as the likelihood that he went into hiding to escape arrest due to the adventures 'considered indecent' in his original manuscript, and the 'unblushing plagiary' remaining in the expurgated version. Nonetheless, the first edition sold out within a year, and by 1667 it had reached a fifth edition!   Richard Head. The Globe's thy Studye; for thy boundless mind... I.F. Published 1795 by I. Caulfield. Engraving, 19th century copy of the frontispiece to Head's 'The English Rogue', 160 x 95mm. 6¼ x 3¾". Laid to card. Portrait of Richard Head (1637? - 1686?), auth...

Gracing the front cover of Antonia Fraser's new book Perilous Question: the Drama of the Great Reform Bill 1832 is a reproduction of HB's 1832 lithograph New Reform Coach , a Tory view of the consequences of the bill, in which the 2nd Earl Grey negligently drives the 'Reform' coach while William IV anxiously looks from the window: New Reform Coach. HB Sketches No 207, published June 1832 Lithograph, sheet 31 x 45cm Staining to edges. £90 + VAT

With the BBC Proms concerts starting this evening and starting a summer of great music at London's Royal Albert Hall, we have highlighted portraits of some of the composers featured: Granted, none of Paganini's own compositions will be performed, but this evening's opening concert programs two works based on his themes (Rachmaninov's famous Rhapsody, aka the 'South Bank Show theme music' and Lutosławski's Variations ). This portrait, published immediately following a concert in London by Paganini, shows him in a suitably inspired and diabolic state: The Modern Orpheus, Opera House - June 3rd 1831. Sketches of the Musical World No.1, to be continued. London Published by Thos. Mc.Lean, June 10th. 1831, 26 Haymarket. Printed by C. Mott 70 St. Martin's Lane. Lithograph, sheet 355 x 295mm. 14 x 11½". Corners cut; small tears. Niccolo Paganini, Italian violinist whose virtuosity became a legend (1782-1840).  Publisher's blin...

In the review of John Bender's Ends of Englightenment in week's Times Literary Supplement 'Hogarth's over-illustrated plates' are given as an instance of eighteenth-century 'facticity' (in which objects and actions 'are staged" for the benefit of virtual witnesses or surrogate observers who, though not present at the original event being depicted or described, can nonetheless "participate in discussion of it through representation"). The review is accompanied by an image of 'The Weighing House', which derives from the frontispiece to the Rev. John Clubbe's Physiognomy (1763). In the frontispiece several figures 'represent types running from the ponderous to the flighty. Clubbe's project is to describe men through the character of their physiognomies and in particular by ascertaining the gravity of their heads' (Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works ). Accordingly, the figures in the illustration are identified  ...