Antique Image of the Day: Pray remember the Puppet Shew Man, 19th C.

Pray Remember the Puppet Shew Man
Nineteenth Century
George Speaight Archive
The Victoria & Albert Museum

This Nineteenth Century, hand-etching is inscribed “Pray remember the Puppet Shew Man (sic.) and depicts, fittingly, a crowd at a puppet show as the bottler (money collector) works his way through the crowd.
The caricature-style image is meant to reinforce the roughness of the characters and the inscription is written in common London-street parlance of the Nineteenth Century.

And, that, frankly, is all we know. It’s not signed nor has it been attributed to anyone, and, frankly, the date of creation is difficult to pin down. However, it’s a fine image which very neatly serves its purpose.

 It lives in the George Speaight Archive at the V&A.