From the Desk to the Throne, A New Quick Step by Joseph Bonaparte the Bass By Messers Nappy and Tally

G. Sauley [Farnham]|Joseph Bonaparte|Thomas Rowlandson|Rudolph Ackermann, London

August 18, 1808 · Hand-colored etching · Drawings and Prints

Joseph, dressed as a lawyer, steps atop a desk with his right toe, while extending his other leg to point his left toe at a map of Spain and Portugal, at Madrid. His hands are raised above his head to hold onto cushions on which is the crown of Spain. Four clerks sit facing each other at the desk he has left, which has double slopes, divided by the low rail from which he steps. One asks: "Why Joseph wither art thou going"; he looks down answer: "Whither - but to fill my high destiny? And like my noble Brother Sway tne Sceptre of another." The other clerks say respectively: "But proverbs tell of many Slips Between the tankard & the lips And really I am apt to give The proverb credit as I live" and "He must needs go whom the Devil drives and should it cost his Neck; Ownds! what a prodigious step for a Notary's clerk."

Artist

G. Sauley [Farnham]|Joseph Bonaparte|Thomas Rowlandson|Rudolph Ackermann, London

Date

August 18, 1808

Medium

Hand-colored etching

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959