Launching a Frigate.

£950 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

There are examples in the BM , V A , Royal Collection , BnF , Morgan Library and Yale. Harvard have a later impression dated 1819. A shocking scene set in the streets surrounding the busy Plymouth dock with a grotesque old woman “launching” a young and seemingly innocent women (a bill pasted on the wall above her head reads “From the Country an assortment of Fresh Ware”) into the life of a prostitute. The print depicts a dubious Hotel and lodging house with the sails of the ships in Plymouth dock visible over the rooftops. There are posters on the wall knowingly advertising “A Tragedy in Rehearsal” and “Leakes Genuine Pills” (a supposed cure for venereal disease). At the lodging house a woman calls from an upstairs window to a black sailor below who carries a suggestive cudgel under his arm. The chimney of the house is exploding with fire. The docks around England’s large ports contained an enormous mixture of people from different countries and classes and sailors who had been away at sea for long periods of time and wanted to spend their wages on procuring women and drink.

• Binding: Hardcover

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