Amateur musicians, the design based on 'Ars-Musica', BMSat 9586, altered, and much elaborated. Four ugly and elderly men grouped round a young woman who sits, full face, at a square piano lit by a guttering candle. She lifts her hands to thump, with grim determination. A 'cellist is on her right, a vast gouty leg thrust forward, a violinist on her left. Behind her are two flautists. Behind (left), a young officer and a girl flirt, hand in hand. In the background (right) are visitors: two military officers shake hands, one bowing so that his sword lifts up the petticoats of a fat lady walking off to the right. A dog howls with one paw on a music-book.
15 May 1801
etching and aquatint
Beneath the title: 'NB. A number of disputes having arisen in the Beau Monde, respecting the Exact Situation of the Ladies Indispensibles (or new Invented Pockets) whether they were placed at the Ancle, or in a more elegible situation, - the above Search took place, in order to determine precisely the Longitude of these inestimable conveniences'. Girls, fashionably dressed, sit sewing round a large table. In the foreground the elephantine Prince of Orange kneels, feeling the leg of two girls on his right and left; they throw up their arms and scream. The others look on, amused or astonished. The mistress of the establishment enters by the door (right), elaborately and indecorously dressed, a feathered bonnet in her hand. On the wall hang cloaks, feathers, a hat, &c, and on a shelf is a bust wearing a feathered hat. A placard: 'le Magasin de Lancastre pour Embellir les Dames Angloise [sic] - Indispencibles'. One of these pockets is on the ground, a girl works at another. They are flat trimmed bags on ribbons, with vertical slits.
12 February 1800
etching
