The New Dynasty:-or- The Little Corsican Gardiner Planting a Royal-Pippin-Tree.- “All the talents”, busy, in clearing the ground of old Timber-

James Gillray

The New Dynasty:-or- The Little Corsican Gardiner Planting a Royal-Pippin-Tree.- “All the talents”, busy, in clearing the ground of old Timber-

London, H Humphrey, June 25^th 1807

Etching

Original hand colouring

255 x 360 mm

£2800

After the title: ‘ – vide, the Berlin Telegraph, of May 21st 1807 – Article – the Genealogy of the Royal – Race of the King of Ballynahinch – See Morg Post June 17th.’ Napoleon and Talleyrand plant the genealogical tree of Lord Moira, inscribed ‘Royal Pippin’. On the r. Grenville, Howick, and Buckingham ply their axes on the trunk of a huge oak-tree: ‘The Royal-Oak’. In the background are rows of other ‘Royal Pippins’, just grafted on old stocks. Talleyrand digs the hole, placing his deformed foot on his spade. Napoleon, in profile to the right., is about to plant the pippin, whose root is a coroneted apple inscribed ‘William the Norman Robber’; on its branches are other coroneted or crowned pippins. The main stem culminates in the whiskered face of Moira, wearing a royal crown. This is reached through a ‘Plantagenet beheaded in 1415’, and ‘Henry de la Pole beheaded in 1538’. Collateral branches are ‘Duchess of Clarence put to death in 1453’, ‘Hungerford Beheaded 1406’, ‘Crookback Richard killd at Bosworth’, ‘Edmund 4th Son of Henry 3d Beheaded’, ‘Countess Salisbury Beheaded in 1505.’ Napoleon wears his large plumed bicorne, the peak on his neck, jack-boots, and a gardeners apron over his uniform. His long sabre is inscribed ‘Corsican Grafting Knife.’ Talleyrand wears a laced coat and cocked hat of the ancien régime, with bag-wig, sword, clerical bands, and rosary. From his pocket hangs a paper: ‘Projet pour Agrandisser les Jardins Imperial’. In the foreground (l.) are three grafts ready to be joined to stocks; they lie against a basket labelled ‘Grafts of King-Pippins for Brentford, Wimbleton, & Botley’. The centre and longest has the head of Cobbett, the others have the heads of Burdett and Horne Tooke. All wear royal crowns; Tooke has clerical bands.
The ‘Royal-Oak’ (r.), an aged but still magnificent tree, whose trunk is gashed by the axes of the late Ministers, has a large royal crown in the centre of its branches, flanked by four giant acorns: ‘Protestant Faith’ (near a withered branch), ‘Integrity of the Lords’, ‘Independence of the Commons’, ‘Liberty of the Press’. All the wood-cutters are in their shirt-sleeves. Grenville is back-to-back with Talleyrand; a cross dangling from a rosary hangs against his massive posterior, his waistcoat is striped in tricolour, his axe is a ‘Catholic Cleaver’. Behind him the spectacled Buckingham raises a ‘Broad-Bottom Hatchet’ [see BMSat 10530]. Howick (r.), very thin and aggressive, plies a ‘Whig Cleaver’. Funguses grow round the tree and on the lower part of the trunk.
In the background is the Imperial nursery garden: rows of newly joined grafts the point of junction with the stock being an egg-shaped lump of ‘Corsican Clay’. Crowned heads sprout from green leaves; they are (l. to r.): ‘Eutrurian [sic] Pippin’, ‘Wirtemburg Pippin’ [the face that of a plump woman, nd probably intended for the Queen, see BMSat 10440], ‘Saxon Pippin’, ‘Holland Pippin’, ‘Itaian [sic] Pippin’. Many others, less defined, recede in perspective