‘Humming All the Trade is – or The Modern Alchymist’, 1827

Description

Mounted hand coloured etching, entitled ‘HUMMING ALL THE TRADE IS – OR THE MODERN ALCHYMIST.’, designed and etched by Thomas Howell Jones, and published by George Humphrey in 1827.

‘HUMMING ALL THE TRADE IS – OR THE MODERN ALCHYMIST’ is another satire on the supposed reasons for William Allen’s third marriage. William Allen was the first President of the Pharmaceutical Society, he married for the third time in 1827.

This marriage was the subject of public comment, since his betrothed – Grizell Birbeck (formerly Grizell Hoare of Stoke Newington) – was a wealthy elderly Quaker widow. Here William Allen is depicted as an alchemist standing, with spade in hand, in his laboratory.

He is shown in quaker dress, with a wide brimmed hat and riding boots. Behind Allen are labelled crucibles, boiling over furnaces, containing the personifications of various concepts (labelled ‘Lectures’, ‘Slavery’, ‘Morality’, ‘Impurity’, ‘Religion’).

He is concerned with distilling gold from an alembic (labelled, ‘Matte