File:Billy's Gouty Visit, or A Peep at Hammersmith (BM 1868,0808.5359).jpg

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Billy's Gouty Visit, or A Peep at Hammersmith   (Wikidata search (Cirrus search) Wikidata query (SPARQL)  Create new Wikidata item based on this file)
Title
Billy's Gouty Visit, or A Peep at Hammersmith
Description
English: Pitt visits the quack de Loutherbourg to be cured of his (supposed) unpopularity. He walks (left to right) with crutches, one gouty leg is swathed with bandages inscribed 'Excise'; he is grotesquely thin. Two stout citizens, one on each side of him, are puffing clouds of smoke in his face inscribed 'Sir R. Walpole's Legacy'. He says, "Dear Doctor relieve me from the Fumes of discontent - set me on my Legs and make a Man of me". The fashionably dressed doctor stands in the centre of the room, in profile to the left, addressing Pitt, and pointing to an oval half length portrait of Chatham on the wall. He says, "I can Cure my poor Patients vidout trouble or expence - but to make de Man of you by Cot I could as soon animate de Canvas". Chatham holds a paper inscribed 'Magna Charta et libertas'; the frame is inscribed 'Right Honble Wm Pitt Earl of Chatham'. On a bench against the wall (left) is a row of 'Incurable Curables': a man without a leg, a woman without arms, a man without a head and with only one arm, a man without arms, a man with half a head. Above their heads 'Miracles never cease!!!' is inscribed within a triangle formed of the names of three notorious quacks: 'Graham', 'Loutherbourg', 'Katterfelto'. In front of these patients is a table on which is a book: 'Medicine - Faith', and a long scroll lying partly on the ground: 'Cures by a Touch. A Maiden of the Green Sickness - A Ditto of a nine months Dropsy - A Child without legs made to go - A Man without a Head made to comprehend - A Lawyer cured of a spotted fever - A Lady of a scarlet Fever - A Bishop of a Lethargy - An Alderman of craving - A Justice of Deafness - A Statesm[an] of Blindness &c &c.' Under the table-cloth is seen a pile of guineas; above this is a placard of the 'Bottle Conjuror' (the bottle-imp issuing from his bottle), below which is inscribed 'Loutherbourg Exd.' On the wall (left) is a placard: 'Question to the Professor - Why not cure the Poor Blind if such a Blessing can be bestowed without Expence or Trouble?'. 20 July 1789
Etching with hand-colouring
Depicted people Representation of: William Pitt the Younger
Date 1789
date QS:P571,+1789-00-00T00:00:00Z/9
Medium paper
Dimensions
Height: 173 millimetres
Width: 340 millimetres
institution QS:P195,Q6373
Current location
Prints and Drawings
Accession number
1868,0808.5359
Notes

(Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VI, 1938)

De Loutherbourg, who lived at Hammersmith Terrace, Chiswick, became a believer in Cagliostro and Mesmer, and, falling under the influence of Richard Brothers, he claimed the powers of prophecy and of curing diseases by prayer and faith. In 1789 a list of his cures was published by a believer, Mary Pratt. See Whitley, 'Artists and their Friends in England', 1928, ii. 354-6. Pitt brought in a Bill for transferring the tobacco duties from Customs to Excise, this was opposed (as Walpole's Excise Bill of 1733 had been) as tyrannical and unconstitutional, and was petitioned against by the manufacturers of tobacco, but the attempt to raise public clamour failed. 'Parl. Hist.' xxix. 177 ff. (debates of 16 and 24 June); 'Ann. Reg., 1789', pp. 154-8. For Graham and Katterfelto see 'Catalogue', vol. v. For the bottle-imp, the great hoax of the century, see BMSats 3022-7, and cf. BMSat 5245. For the tobacco excise see also BMSats 7551, 7554, 7563, 7625, 7634, 7640, 7670.
Source/Photographer https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1868-0808-5359
Permission
(Reusing this file)
© The Trustees of the British Museum, released as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current14:13, 15 May 2020Thumbnail for version as of 14:13, 15 May 20202,500 × 1,276 (1.07 MB)Copyfraud (talk | contribs)British Museum public domain uploads (Copyfraud/BM) Satirical prints in the British Museum 1789 #10,206/12,043

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