London: Pub. by W.H. Isaacs, Charles St. Soho, [circa 1830].
Price: $600.00
Unbound. Hand-colored aquatint etching. Measuring 6¾" x 8½" (22 x 17.5cm). Margins slightly and a bit irregularly trimmed, slight soiling at the extremities, but a bright, near fine example of this racist cartoon satirizing middle-class African-Americans in Philadelphia. The balcony scene is depicted with the following caption:
Romeo: How Silber sweet, sounds Lubbers Tongues by Night; like serptest Music to attending Ears.
Juliet: Deu know'st de mask ob night is on my face, else would a maiden blush bepaint any cheek.
Illustrated by Charles Hunt, inspired by the American Edward Williams Clay's series of 14 popular cartoons (10 of blacks, four of whites), published in 1828, which were in turn based on Cruikshank's *Life in London* series. The first edition was published in London in 1829; this publisher apparently reissued the print in the early 1830s. *OCLC* locates one copy (University of Michigan) with very slightly larger margins (22.5 x 18.6cm). Rare.
Item #410612
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