FDA-D.159-2010
Parts
Object number
FDA-D.159-2010
Object type
Identification
Title
An Eton Wig
Whiteley
Whiteley
Title Type
assigned by cataloguer
collection
collection
Comments
The son of the engraver and caricaturist Isaac Cruickshank, Isaac Robert attempted to escape what was to become the family profession by going to sea. On his return he worked as an illustrator and satirist, without ever achieving the renown of his younger brother, George. The brothers illustrated Pierce Egan's Life in London in 1820-21, for which Robert is said to have created the characters of the men-about-town Tom and Jerry.
An Eton wig was published as a broadsheet, probably in the early 1820s, with the title, 'Mr and Mrs Vites Journey to Vindsor and Vest Vickham von Vitsunday. Written and composed by Mr Rhodes and sung with unbounded applause by Mr Downton of the Theartre Royal, Drury Lane, in his entertainment of summer amusement'. The song caricatures a cockney couple who make a holiday outing to Windsor; the husband drowns and all that the Eton boatman can salvage is his wig. This item of headgear was then quite unfasionable and thus incongruous for a working-class city dweller engaged in the bourgeois activity of seeking country pleasures. The substitution of 'v' for 'w' mimics cockney speech in the same manner as Dickens was to do with Pickwick's cockney manservant, Sam Weller. Robert Cruickshank witnessed the 1823 Montem at Eton, the subject of a print issued in 1824; his illustration for the comic song could, however, as easily have been drawn from the imagination as from any actual experience of his own.
An Eton wig was published as a broadsheet, probably in the early 1820s, with the title, 'Mr and Mrs Vites Journey to Vindsor and Vest Vickham von Vitsunday. Written and composed by Mr Rhodes and sung with unbounded applause by Mr Downton of the Theartre Royal, Drury Lane, in his entertainment of summer amusement'. The song caricatures a cockney couple who make a holiday outing to Windsor; the husband drowns and all that the Eton boatman can salvage is his wig. This item of headgear was then quite unfasionable and thus incongruous for a working-class city dweller engaged in the bourgeois activity of seeking country pleasures. The substitution of 'v' for 'w' mimics cockney speech in the same manner as Dickens was to do with Pickwick's cockney manservant, Sam Weller. Robert Cruickshank witnessed the 1823 Montem at Eton, the subject of a print issued in 1824; his illustration for the comic song could, however, as easily have been drawn from the imagination as from any actual experience of his own.
Other number
MFW 6
Description
Dimensions
height (actual size): 184mm
width (actual size): 216mm
width (actual size): 216mm
Inscription
Signed 'Cruickshank' (lower left)
Materials & techniques note
Pencil, pen and grey ink and watercolour
Production
Person
Date
19th century
History and association
Object history note
Provenance: With Agnew's; with Leger Galleries; sold through Sotheby's, 15 July 1976 (Lot 82); collection of Martin Whiteley; by whom bequeathed to Eton College
Exhibited: 'A Genius for Watercolour', Christie’s, London, 6 to 24 January 2003, (catalogue number. 6)
Exhibited: 'A Genius for Watercolour', Christie’s, London, 6 to 24 January 2003, (catalogue number. 6)
Previous ownership
