Accession No

6787

Brief Description

print, hand-coloured watercolour etching, 'March of Intellect', by William Heath, published by T. McLean, English, 1829

Origin

England; London; 26 Haymarket

Maker

Heath, William McLean, T. [publisher]

Class

prints

Earliest Date

1829

Latest Date

1829

Inscription Date

Material

Paper

Dimensions

width 403 mm, depth 283 mm

Special Collection

Provenance

Purchased from Andrew Edmunds Prints & Drawings, London, England, 30/03/2023

Inscription

'MARCH of INTELLECT' [bottom]

'Pub by T. McLean 26 Haymarket London' [bottom right]

'Esq. Del' [bottom left]

' "Lord how this world improves as we grow older" '[top]

Description Notes

Hand-coloured watercolour etching, 'March of Intellect', by William Heath, published by T. McLean, English, 1829

Satirical print showing a busy scene full of caricatured elements of the Industrial Revolution.

Description from the The British Museum:

"Above the design: '"Lord how this world improves as we grow older.' A complicated design, foreground, middle distance, and sky filled with incidents, chiefly on applications of steam. In the foreground is a street-vendor's table spread with a white cloth and heaped with pine-apples, &c; beside it sits an elegant young woman reading a book, 'Sentimen . . .', while a little boy holds over her a large pagoda-like umbrella, heavily fringed. A dustman gnaws a pine-apple, while his vis-à-vis, eating an ice, says 'Vont you take a hice Joe.' Beside it (left) is the tombstone of the 'Select Vestry', decorated with glass, knife and fork, and topped by a weeping cherub's head. On the right a steam-horse on a low-wheeled platform, on which are the necessary pipes, &c, careers forwards and to the right; the driver, dressed as a jockey, holds a steering-bar set in the creature's head; smoke pours from its nostrils; a huge smoking chimney, placarded 'The Steam Horse VELOCITY No Stopage on the Road', ascends from the tail. Behind the steersman sit four passengers: a lady in a riding-habit, a barrister in wig and gown, a well-dressed man, an Irish haymaker smoking a pipe. On the left is a little steam trolley beside which walks a woman crying 'Delicate Viends [sic] for your Quadrupeds'; on it is a basket of coal placarded 'Prime Cats Meat'. On the extreme left a footman in livery smoking a giant pipe (as in BM Satires No. 15604t) hands a letter to a flying postman, supported on webbed wings, who rings his bell, and has a pouch: 'Two Penny Post'. A man drives a lady in a light three-wheeled chair, worked by bellows and a propeller. A street-seller of 'Mutton Broth' walks before his huge steaming pan which rests on a wheeled platform with a funnel. A massive old-fashioned country wagon has a steam funnel and a steersman: 'London & Bath in Six Hours'. On the extreme right are adjacent open sheds; one contains a complicated mechanism where a top-boot is being brushed by steam; the owner sits on his portmanteau, waiting for them, while he puffs a cigar and reads the 'Gazette de France'. This is placarded 'Royal Patent Boot Cleaning Engine'; above: 'Puras Deus, Non Plenas, Adspicit Manus' [God regards only pure hands, not full ones]. The other is smaller and contains an engine to which is attached a huge razor, operating on the Duchess of St. Albans and placarded 'The St Al—ns New Steam Razor Patronized by her Grace' [cf. BM Satires No. 15654, &c.].
In the middle distance (left) are buildings. The Marble Arch (see BM Satires No. 15850), topped by a gibbet, which is placarded 'Designed to Elevate the Architects'; a man, smoking a cigar, kneels to adjust the noose. Behind is the east front of the Palace, with scaffolding and figures: on the dome, "the ball in the cup", see BM Satires No. 15669, a figure holds a trident, on the right a monstrous bird and a giraffe see BM Satires No. 15425). Next the arch is a 'Model for a new Church approved by the Mommitte [sic] of Taste': a fantastic neo-Gothic hybrid with a dome, topped by pillars supporting a platform, from which hangs a big bell, and on which squats a giant mandarin, with a clock-face on its belly, holding up two fingers and a lantern. The roof of the church is flat, covered with tombs, and edged with spikes for the protection of a cemetery, which is placarded 'This Church Yard is perfectly Safe' [see BM Satires No. 15777]; a coffin is being hauled up by a crane, apparently worked by steam. A smaller adjacent building (left) seemingly houses a furnace and steam-engine and is inscribed 'Kitchen'. The church abuts (right) on 'Greenwich Hill'; on this rests one end of a huge tube: 'Grand Vacuum Tube-Company Direct to Bengal' (a development of the Edinburgh-London tube of BM Satires No. 15075); this, receding in perspective, bridges an ocean, the other end resting on 'Bengal', where a tiny passenger steps out and clasps a welcoming Indian by the hand. Passengers on Greenwich Hill are about to enter the tube, where the back of a coach appears; a turbaned conductor shouts 'Now whos for Bengal'. An aperture or window in the tube shows passengers seated on an open coach or wheeled platform as in BM Satires No. 15075; women passengers wear monstrous hats. From the Bengal plain (right) a hill ascends on which rests the end of a bridge: 'Companys Suspension Bridge—To Cape Town'; a massive pier rising from the ocean contains a building: 'Restorateur' [sic]. On the water dividing England from India is a lady in a car harnessed to swans, as in BM Satires No. 11405 by Gillray. A big canopied passenger boat is drawn by a team of eight dolphins; the driver shouts 'Come up there'.
On a plateau behind Greenwich Hill is a wheeled steam-engine, like a giant watering-can with spout fore and aft gushing water: this is 'Mc Adams Newly Invented to lay the Dust he makes' [cf. BM Satires No. 15365]. On the sky-line a demoniac figure fires a mortar from which a blast slants across the sky inscribed 'Quick Conveyance for Irish Emigrants': tiny figures, one with a rake, are shot into the air to fall headlong.
Aerial travel is represented (1) by a platform supported at each corner by a balloon on which are soldiers and artillery (reminiscent of the French invasion fantasies of 1797 and 1803, see BM Satires Nos. 9220, 10029); (2) by an airship in the form of a whale-like monster with webbed wings, placarded 'For New South Wales'; raffish passengers of both sexes are seen through a window below which are the words 'with Convicts'. (3) A lady (right) sits between two propellers, steering a frail little machine drawn by a big kite (cf. BM Satires No. 15604!). On the left is a massive collection of cloud-borne castles, on which tiny builders are at work; placarded: 'Scheme for the Payment of the National Debt'. "

References

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