Current Location: In storage
Titles
A Very Im['Im' struck through]pertinent Question
HB Sketches No. 54
Maker(s)
Printmaker:
Doyle, John (HB)
Publisher:
McLean, Thomas
Entities
Categories
Description
Lithograph (uncoloured) on white wove paper. Inlaid within a frame of buff wove paper (approx. height 360mm x width 515mm). An interior scene around a cloth-covered table with Wellington (Duke of Wellington; Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, 1769-1852; Prime Minister from 1828 to 1830) seated at the left, Peel (Sir Robert Peel; Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, 1788-1850; Prime Minister, 1834–1835 and 1841–1846) seated beside him. Wellington holds a paper taken from an open displatch box. The actor, John Liston (1776-1846) in the character of Paul Pry stands before the two men offering his hat and holding an umbrella under his left arm. Paul Pry was characterised as a meddlesome and mischievous fellow consumed with curiosity and unable to mind his own business and was played by Liston in the three-act farce of the same name which premiered at the Haymarket Theatre in London on 13 September 1825. Text contained inside a (faint) speech bubble: 'I have just dropped in to ask / you a little question, I want to know - / if you are really desirous to releive [sic] / the people by retrenchment and / economy - why you don't begin / by reducing your own / Salaries?'. Wellington answers in text contained inside a speech bubble (faint): 'Your question Sir, is a very / impertinent question! / and I take it to be / exceedingly personal!'. Peel responds with text inside a (faint) speech bubble: 'What a very / disagreeable question!'. The title is printed below the border: 'A VERY IM['IM' struck through]PERTINENT QUESTION'. The publisher's details printed below, the lower part of the text cropped by the edge of the paper: 'Published by Thomas McLean 26 Haymarket, 3rd March 1830'. Handwritten in graphite at upper right: '54'. See 16065,_Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires_, Vol. XI, 1828-1832, M.D. George, published 1954, pp. 273-4. A number '[54]' printed in square brackets in the right-hand margin on p. 273 relates to the handwritten number at upper right, both referencing the sequence of John Doyle's Political Sketches series.
Legal notes
Given by Mrs J.E. Foster, 1895
