![George Bickham, A Taylor [A Tailor]](https://www.georgeglazer.com/wpmain/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/bickham-taylor.jpg "George Bickham, A Taylor [A Tailor]")
Description
The British Museum has two examples of A Taylor in its collection along with others by Bickham: (A Victualler or Publican and Moll Handy). One of their Taylor prints includes the same credits as this one with the addition of “According to Act of Parliam’t 1746.” The other example omits that information and the museum dates it 1750. Below is a transcription of the key in italics, with explanations in brackets.
A Taylor. Erected out of his own Utensils without ye assistance of Nature, all but a Cabbage. 1 Thimble [his hat], 2 Cabbage [his head], 3 Measures [tapes with partially hidden names of clients, including “Beau War—n,” “Mr Jollor jun’r,” “Mr. Henders…,” “Cumberl…”, slung across the his shoulder], 4 Cuckold for Thread [a skein of threads], 5 Needle Book, 6 Bodkin, 7 Wax, 8 Cutting Board with Forebody [the pattern of the front part of a man’s coat], 9 Sleave Board, 10 Needle [taking the place of his left hand], 11 Yard [a yard stick rising from the lower part of his body], 12 Shears [hanging between his legs for humorous effect], 13 Notch Board [forming his right hand], 14 Lap D’o [small cutting boards forming his legs], 15 Goose [flat irons forming his feet], 16 Cucumber [on the ground in the background — “cucumber time” was tailors’ slang for summer, when business was slow because their wealthy customers left the city for their country houses].
It can be added that Cabbage apparently was an allusion to the perquisite of a tailor to keep fabric remnants for himself, which was under threat of discontinuance in the mid 18th Century.
This print derives from a tradition of physiognomic portraits dating back to 1695, when Nicolas Armessin II (generally known as “Larmessin”) published his Costumes Grotesques, whimsical depictions of members of various professions whose bodies or costumes were assembled from tools of the trade. Larmessin was following the precedent of assembling human forms from inanimate objects established in the late Renaissance, most notably in a series of allegorical portraits by the 16th century Mannerist painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo (c. 1527-1593). Although Arcimboldo’s men, depicted with heads formed from vegetables and plant matter, arguably had a disturbing surreal undercurrent, Larmessin depicted the faces and body proportions undistorted, like characters playfully dressed for a costume party. Costumes Grotesques met with great success, and was subsequently republished by Gerrit Valck in Germany and Gabriel Huquier in the 18th century, and widely influenced later artists and costume designers.
George Bickham the Younger (c. 1706-1771) was a printmaker and publisher based in London. According to the British Museum he was a “prolific publisher of a very wide range of prints.” Over 200 of them are in that museum’s collection and include song sheets from 1737-38, portraits, views, prints after Old Master paintings, political satire and genre subjects. Earlier in his career he collaborated on some prints with his father, the engraver and publisher George Bickham the Elder. Bickham seems to have engraved or etched some of the prints he published himself, under pseudonyms. He retired in 1767 and his copperplates and press were sold a year after his death.
Full publication information: G. Bickham in May’s Buildings; the next will be a Vintner.
Condition: Generally very good, recently professionally cleaned and deacidfied, with light remaining toning, wear, handling, and a few pale scattered foxing or discoloration marks (unobtrusive).
References:
“A Taylor.” British Museum. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_2001-0930-32 (22 October 2021).
“George Bickham the Younger.” British Museum. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG19579 (22 October 2021).
