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    • Author/Creator:Newton, Richard, 1777-1798, printmaker, artist.
    • Title:Christmass boxes [graphic] / drawn & etchd. by Rd. Newton.
    • Publication:London : Pubd. by Wm. Holland, 50 Oxford St., Decem. 25, 1794.
    • Physical Description:1 print : etching ; plate mark 25.5 x 31 cm, on sheet 26.8 x 33 cm
    • Yale Holdings

       
    • Medium:wove paper
    • Notes:Title etched below image.
      Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires.
    • Summary:A satire, divided into quarters, with four small scenes of different episodes of persons trying to collect their Christmas boxes. In the first square in the upper left, a plump supplicant in an apron holds out his hat to a scowling-faced man with a kerchief tied over his hat and a walking stick under his arm as they meet in a road outside a building with a lamp. Behind him on the wall is a sign posted "Miser'. In response to the request, the miser says "Give you a Christmass box. Curse you don't I pay you for your meat." On the top row, right, a thin man (a grave digger?) with a pipe in his mouth, bows to an obese clergyman, with a fat dog at his heel, as they stand in the graveyard of a church. The gravedigger asks, "Most worthy Parson give me a Christmass box." The Parson replies, "Give you a halter you rascal. What should I give you a Christmass box for." In the lower left, clergyman shakes his walking stick at a surprised man who is carrying a large box on his back and secured with a strap over his forehead. The clergyman says to the laborer, "If you ever ask me for a Christmass box again, I'll physic you to death." They are standing in front of building with a lantern and sign that reads "Gargle Apothycary." The fourth square, lower right, shows old, hag-faced woman with a hat and muff standing in a parlor as she slaps the face of an astonished footman. She tells him, "Take that you saucy rascal for a Xmass box!" He replies, "What's that for. I did not want a box on the ear, not I."
    • Variant and related titles:Christmas boxes
    • Format:Visual Material
    • References:Alexander, D.S. Richard Newton and English caricature in the 1790s, 148
    • Subjects:Charity--England.
      Christmas--England.
      Begging (Pleading)
      Cemeteries.
      Clergy.
      Dogs.
      Milestones.
      Muffs.
      Obesity.
      England--Social life and customs.
    • Genre/Form:Satires (Visual works)--England--1794.
      Etchings--England--London--1794.
    • Also listed under:Holland, William, active 1782-1817, publisher.