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THOMAS ROWLANDSON (1757-1827)
Billy Lackbeard and Charley Blackbeard playing at Football.
7 Feb 1784RCIN 810033
Fox and Pitt had argued in Parliament over the organisation of the British East India Company, which controlled lucrative trade with the East. Rowlandson here shows them playing football with the Company’s East India House. This print encapsulates the comic potential of the politicians’ rivalry, showing them as physical as well as ideological opposites.
Probably acquired during the reign of Queen Victoria
Cat. 4
Bibliographic reference(s)
BM Satires 6406 (BM Satires : Catalogue of political and personal satires preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum ... 11 v. in 12.)
