Boney and Talley the Corsican carcase-butcher’s reckoning day. New Style —No Quarter Day !

James Gillray

Boney and Talley the Corsican carcase-butcher’s reckoning day. New Style —No Quarter Day !

London , J Ginger, ca 1804

Etching

Original hancd colouring

320 x 330 mm

Traces of old folds

£950

Originally published by Hannah Humprises in 1803. Republished as a header for a broadside with 29 verses.

 “The interior of a carcass-butcher’s slaughter-house, the carcasses of animals suspended from the wall. Through the doorway (l.) is seen a rock rising from the sea on which stands a bellowing bull; at the base of the rock is a British fleet. Napoleon, the butcher, with cleaver and knife, makes frantic efforts to reach the (distant) bull, but is restrained by Talleyrand who holds him round the waist. He wears top-boots, one inscribed ‘7 Leagues’, with apron, and rolled-up shirt-sleeves, showing ‘R T’ [? ‘Returned Transport’] branded on his left. arm. On one flap of Talleyrand’s oddly shaped cocked hat is a cross, to indicate the ci-devant Bishop of Autun. The head of the Russian bear looks in at the door, gazing menacingly at Napoleon. In the foreground lies a bulky body from which head, hands, and feet have been chopped; to it is skewered a paper: ‘Germanic Body’; the severed r. hand lies on a paper inscribed ‘Hanover’. On the extreme left. is a round wicker cage surmounted by the Papal tiara, inscribed: ‘From Rome and Not worth Killing’; it contains a fox and other small animals. On the extreme right. is a dog-kennel inscribed ‘Prussia’ and ‘Put up to Fatten’; from it a lean greyhound on a short chain puts out its head to lap greedily at a trough of ‘Consular Whipt Syllabub’. Behind this is the butcher’s block, on which lies a cleaver; blood drips from it into a receptacle inscribed ‘Treasury’. Behind Napoleon, in a trough inscribed ‘Jaffa Cross Breed’, are the bodies of six turbaned Moslems; blood gushes from the trough into a tank inscribed ‘Glory’. On the wall hang carcasses, &c. (l. to r.): a ram ticketed ‘True Spanish – Fleec’d’; a bleeding calf’s head, a simian creature with a tail labelled ‘Native Breed’; an ass, ticketed ‘From Switzerland’, a bloated pig ‘From Holland’. Below the title: ‘New Style – No Quarter Day!’ The verses are a dialogue between ‘Boney and Talley’ on the possibilities of plunder and conquest. Talleyrand restrains Bonaparte from a mad rush at the bull, regardless of the intervening water