Charles Williams
The full-blown-rose and petty mushroom!!
London, S W Fores, August 5th. 1806
Etching
Original hand colouring
250 x 350 mm
Stuck on album sheet
£240
A large rose, whose centre is the face in profile of George Rose, sprouts from the comparative eminence of a straw-covered dung-heap, inscribed ‘Opposition-Hot-Bed’. It looks down contemptuously at the head of Petty (r.) issuing from the ground among much smaller roses; the latter’s neck is a stalk, his hat the top of a flattened conical m room. Rose says: "I really wonder how such a Fungus as you, ever attempted to place yourself in that gay Parterre – that exquisite Bed of Roses as it once was – but now perfectly contaminated." Fox, a burly and benevolent gardener on the extreme right., leans on his spade, looking down at his rightose-bed; he says: "Never mind him my little Mushroom, stay where you are – he only wants to be transplanted – I am an Old Gardener and know a thing or two!!" Beside him stands his ‘Broad Bottom’d Watering Pot’
