A Reflection upon the future Prospects of Greece.: P.14653-R

Current Location: In storage

Titles

A Reflection upon the future Prospects of Greece.
HB Sketches No. 51

Maker(s)

Printmaker: Doyle, John (HB)
Publisher: McLean, Thomas

Entities

Satirical print

Description

Lithograph (uncoloured) on white wove paper. Inlaid within a frame of buff wove paper (approx. height 360mm x width 515mm). Prince Leopold sits on a chair looking at himself in a cheval mirror in the right foreground. He appears dandified, wearing a coat, top hat and holding a cane across his right shoulder. The scene depicts Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (1790-1865) in a moment of introspection deliberating on whether to take up the throne of Greece that was offered to him by the plenipotentaries of Great Britain, France and Russia when Greece was declared an independent sovereign state in the London Protocol of 3 February 1830. Leopold declined and the throne was taken up instead in May 1832 by Prince Otto of Bavaria. The artist's initials in monogram at lower left: 'HB'. Title printed below the border: 'A _REFLECTION_ upon the future PROSPECTS OF GREECE.' The publisher's details printed below, the lower part of the text cropped by the edge of the paper: 'London Published by THOMAS McLEAN, 26 Haymarket, Feby 22nd, 18[30]'. Handwritten in graphite at upper right: '51'. See 16043,_Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires_, Vol. XI, 1828-1832, M.D. George, published 1954, pp. 266-7. A number '[51]' printed in square brackets in the right-hand margin on p. 266 relates to the handwritten number at upper right, both referencing the sequence of John Doyle's Political Sketches series.