Title:
THE WOLF & THE LAMB: A PARODY on Mr. Mulready's popular Picture
Materials:
paper
Techniques:
lithograph
Production person:
Print made by John Doyle (HB)
Printed by: A Ducôte
Published by: Thomas McLean
Production place:
Published in London, 26 Haymarket
Date: March 7, 1838
Schools/Styles:
British satire
Description
No. 525. A boy standing in a threatening position with his fists clenched under a tree (Lord Brougham); next to him at far right, a boy standing in front of a fence, lifting his right arm and right leg in defense (Lord Melbourne); a little girl at left, with her back turned (Queen Victoria), running to a man dressed as a woman, impersonating her mother, standing in a door in background at left (Duke of Wellington).
Inscription Content: Series title and number at top right; initialled by artist; lettered below image with title, followed by 'A parody / on Mr Mulready's highly popular Picture.', and publication details: 'Published by T. Mc. Lean, 26, Haymarket, 7th.. March 1838. / A. Ducôte's Lithogy. 70, St. Martins Lane.'
Text from 'An Illustrative Key to the Political Sketches of H.B.', London 1841:
The person who is unacquainted with Mulready's picture will require to be told that this sketch is a fac-simile of it in all respects except the faces. The wolf is one of those pugnacious boys who "love fighting better than their food." The poor boy, with whom he is picking a quarrel, for the mere pleasure of exercising his fists upon him, appears by the crape on his hat to be an orphan, and his little sister, wearing in her bonnet the same symptom of bereavement, is hastening to summon to his help her widowed mother, who appears at the door of her cottage in weeds of woe. The sketch is an admirable copy of the original; but the analogy between the characters is not perfect. Lord Brougham, it is true, is a man who loves contention; but he is not a savage, nor is Lord Melbourne, when roused, an unequal match for his antagonist, although he is a sort of "noir faineant," and would always rather decline making the effort. The happiest part of the parody is the substitution of the Duke of Wellington for the mother, for he is always ready to interpose between Lord Melbourne's Government and its assailants, jealous, perhaps, of those who, in correcting it, would exercise a power with which he conceives himself to be the only person rightfully invested.
Associated names
Representation of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Representation of Queen Victoria
Representation of William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
Representation of Henry Peter, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
Associated with William Mulready