Woodward (George Moutard) After.

one of several satires of the false dawn of peace with Napoleon that surrounded negotiations leading up to, and culminating in, the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, with some warning against associating this tentative and highly tenuous peace with the return of plenty, symbolised here by a euphoric John Bull uttering the exhortation, ‘That’s right my Lads – jig it away, Peace and Plenty’, to his diminutive festive companions, comprising various foods and drink, a leg of mutton, a bag of prime hops, a mealy potato, a half-round of Double Gloucester, a pat of butter, and bottles of Jamaican Rum, Old Port and Coniac, all with human arms and legs, everyone dancing to the tune of a foaming tankard of Old Stout playing the fiddle, and a loaf of The Best Wheaten Bread playing a pipe, while a larger anthropomorphised joint of meat, Sir Loin for ever, seated upper right, sings ‘O the roast Beef of Old England’, the ensemble conducted by a simlar large figure of a sack of Genuine Flour, No Adulteration, upper right, this example a later issue in the years following the genuine peace of 1815,

etching by the publisher, Robert Piercy, with original hand-colouring, 265 x 340 mm. (10 1/2 x 13 3/8 in), on Basted Mills watermarked wove paper dated 1823, the original imprint below the title visibly scored through in the plate, the pale even browning, a few repaired tears in the margins, well outside the plate mark, [BM Satires 9850],