File:An English balloon 1784 (BM 1904,0819.719 1).jpg

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An English balloon 1784   (Wikidata search (Cirrus search) Wikidata query (SPARQL)  Create new Wikidata item based on this file)
Title
An English balloon 1784
Description
English: A companion print to BMSat 6701, 6702, 6703. A balloon in the form of a grinning face wearing a fool's cap across which is etched:



'An English Balloon [the title]
1784
When the World is all Mad, it is sure the best rule
To go smooth with the current in playing the Fool
'Tis a lesson in practice by simple John Bull
O the Mad Folks of Old England &c.
I wish some wise Doctor wou'd point it out plain
How the Gas or Mad Merc'ry enters the Brain
Then I wish he wou'd cure it, but fear it's vain
O the Mad Folks of Old England &c.'

Asses' ears project from the cap, and on the front, above the inscription, are two figures facing each other in profile: a clown (left) and Punch blowing soap-bubbles (right). The balloon or head is suspended between two platforms on a rope slung from masts supported by pulleys; a flag flies from one of them (right). 'Inflammable air' or gas is being pumped into the balloon by two large bellows, one on each platform, worked by men using levers. On each platform are well-dressed spectators; through the space between the platforms a crowd of more distant spectators is seen; behind them is the façade of Bethlehem Hospital (Bedlam). Behind each platform is a group of trees. Flames appear to issue from the back of the balloon. 1784


Etching and aquatint
Depicted people Associated with: Vincent Lunardi
Date 1784
date QS:P571,+1784-00-00T00:00:00Z/9
Medium paper
Dimensions
Height: 249 millimetres
Width: 352 millimetres
institution QS:P195,Q6373
Current location
Prints and Drawings
Accession number
1904,0819.719
Notes

(Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VI, 1938) A satire on Lunardi's ascent from the Artillery Ground on 15 Sept. 1784. On one platform (left) are ladies, two wearing enormous calash-hoods, with one of whom a man, probably Lunardi, is shaking hands. A very stout woman in a riding-habit is seated. A man standing behind holding a speaking-trumpet gives orders. A lady ascends to the platform by a ladder. On the other platform, besides some very stout gentlemen, is a young man using a speaking-trumpet with a small dog under his arm; probably Biggin, see BMSat 6706. A cat and dog were taken up. Verses are etched on the vertical front of each platform in the lower right and left corners of the print:

(left) 'Close to those Walls where Folly holds her throne And laughs to think Monroe would take it down It once was a rule, when a Wit playd the Fool To give him a Cap with a bell When Philosophers wise on Air Bubbles rise It surely would fit them as well Toll loll &c'

(right) 'All that on Folly Frenzy could beget Fruits of dull Head and Sooterkins of Wit. Popes Dunc[iad] Cam, and Isis, no more be proud of your Store In Classics, and Arts, take no trouble Quit your Logic and Greek, if for Fortune you seek Lunardi will shew you his Bubble Toll de roll.'

See Lunardi's 'Account of the First Aërial Voyage in England', 1784. There are in the Print Room an etching (coloured) by J. J. Brewer of the ascent from the Artillery Ground, and a plate published by Fores, 23 Sept. 1784, of 'The Enterprizing Lunardi's Grand Air Balloon'. For others satire on balloon ascents see BMSat 6333, &c, and index. See also prints in Banks Collection, i, ff. 20-30 (B.M.L. 1890. e. 15); Kay, Nos. XXXVI, XXXVIII.
Source/Photographer https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1904-0819-719
Permission
(Reusing this file)		 © The Trustees of the British Museum, released as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
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current09:17, 15 May 2020Thumbnail for version as of 09:17, 15 May 20202,500 × 1,875 (889 KB)Copyfraud (talk | contribs)British Museum public domain uploads (Copyfraud/BM) Satirical prints in the British Museum 1784 image 2 of 2 #9,651/12,043

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