The Prince of Whales or the Fisherman at Anchor

George Cruikshank

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This light-hearted marine triumph casts George, Prince of Wales as a sea monster distracted by pleasure. In January 1812 the prince had officially become Regent and Cruikshank emphasizes his fleshly self-indulgence and weakness for mistresses and flatterers. When he became Regent, the prince surprised his former Whig friends by retaining the Tory Spencer Perceval as chief minister. Perceval, the fisherman of the title, stands in a small boat holding his prize fast on a golden chain while being showered by the "Dew of Favor." The disgruntled Whigs at left receive only "the Liquor of Oblivion." Clearly bored with politics, the Regent eyes a buxom mermaid, his most recent mistress Isabella, Marchioness of Hertford. He ignores both her scowling merman husband, and a second mermaid, his former mistress Maria Fitzherbert. The background colonnade represents Carlton House, the prince’s palatial home on Pall Mall.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art