‘Dr VE_D__N’, c1793

Description

Mounted etching, entitled ‘Dr. VE_D__N’, designed and etched by anon, and published by C. Johnson, the publisher of ‘WONDERFUL MAGAZINE’, around 1793.

This caricature is a portrait satire of Miss “Chevalier” John Theodora de Verdien, a noted London eccentric and cross dresser. Similar portraits were published after their death, on 16 July 1802. In this etching an elderly person in a large coat, wearing a bagwig and cocked hat, walks stooping in profile to the left towards the entrance of a bookshop.

They carry two large books under the left arm, an umbrella under the right, a walking stick in their right hand and pockets filled with books. Prints and notices are displayed in the shop’s window: “Old Books Bought” and “Price 6 [-] Import[ant] Life of Paine”.

Lettered below the scene: “A remarkable Walking Bookseller, Quack Doctor &c. &c. hawking Old Books as Mosess do Old Cloaths. Stop Gentle Reader, & Behold A Beau in Boots, searching for Gold, A Walking Bookseller, an Epicure, A Teacher, Doctor & a