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Extremely fragile, this visually stunning, minutely detailed chronology is inevitably rare and highly desirable. Two concentric spirals radiate from a central portrait of the king, the inner delineating the "various administrations formed during his reign", the outer major events including the conclusion of the Seven Years War, the American Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, campaigns in South Asia, and the opening salvoes of the War of 1812. The densely printed text also includes relevant statistical information, particularly as relates to the major campaigns; numbers of troops under arms, sailors at sea, prisoners taken, cost of supplies, but also the funded national debt, annual expenditure, and, ticking steadily throughout, the price of a peck loaf. The whole contained within an elaborate decorative frame comprised of a narrow chequered band enclosing a wide scrolled foliate border set with the Royal Arms centrally top and bottom, and the Imperial State Crown with crossed rose and thistle with banderolle reading"dieu et mon droit" similarly placed at the sides. In each corner is a portrait of a hero of the period, "In an age abounding with so many Warriors & Senators, whose equals the page of History can scarcely produce, it is difficult to select the most suitable characters to adorn this design, or those who have been most active in the great Events of our own times, but none seem to have diffused the rays of glory with greater splendour round the nation than Nelson and Wellington. Fame will transmit to distant posterity the vigorous eloquence of Fox and Pitt, & exhibit them as patterns worthy their imitation. The portraits are esteemed striking likenesses". The politicians' busts are unveiled with a fanfare by the angel of Fame, the martial heroes are framed with laurel and palm, set above suitable naval and military trophies respectively. The print is the work of Malcolm Rymer (1775-1835), Edinburgh-born engraver, print seller, and author of at least one Gothic novel, The Spaniard, or, The Pride of Birth (1806). Rymer has been shown to have been if not radical, then at least on the reformist fringe of Whiggism. The selection of the portraits, the timing of publication, essentially a celebration of the reign of George III published close on the removal of all restrictions on the powers of the Prince Regent, and the catastrophist litany of disorder which closes the chronology to July 1812 - "Alarming Riots in Nottinghamshire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire", the assassination of Spencer Percival, "The Old Administration continues with a few trivial changes" - certainly suggests critical intent. Examples traced to the Victoria and Albert 1985/2028, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 62/271, Art Institute of Chicago, 2005.68, "cotton, plan weave", and The Society of the Cincinatti, M. 218.002, "ochre cotton plate-printed in dark red pigment". See Rebecca Nesvet, "Science and Art, a Farce, in Two Acts", Scholarly Editing, 38, 2017. Copper engraving printed on vivid yellow silk "handkerchief" (840 x860 mm). One short tear with very minor loss, a few small moth holes, and some scattered fairly unobtrusive staining, overall unusually well preserved, very good. N° de réf. du vendeur 166817
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