The horse's mouth, showing the age by the teeth : containing a full description of the periods when the teeth are cut the appearances they present the tricks to which they are exposed the eccentricities to which they are liable and the diseases to which they are subject / by Edward Mayhew.
- Edward Mayhew
- Date:
- [between 1850 and 1859?]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The horse's mouth, showing the age by the teeth : containing a full description of the periods when the teeth are cut the appearances they present the tricks to which they are exposed the eccentricities to which they are liable and the diseases to which they are subject / by Edward Mayhew. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![FROM TIIE ADMIRABLE PICTURE aziBiciBsvaiB) aw fii a©aisis]ki'2’j (Sirgnrfafb in Sfc^othrt, feigfelg <#ittti%b, BY MR. W. H. SIMMONS. SIZE OF THE ENGRAVING, WITH MARGIN FOR FRAMING, 30 BY 26 INCHES. Artists’ Proofs £3 3 0 Proofs Before Letters 2 2 0 Prints 110 Prints, Coloured from the Original Picture ... 2 2 0 May ayd December. Engraved by W. H. Simmons, from a Painting- by J. Lament Brodie.—Fores & Co. The visitors to the Royal Academy Exhibition of the past year, such at least of them as have an eye for the pleasing, the merry, and the bright—the admirers of Allegro, rather than her more solemn sister-nymph Penseroso—must have noticed, and having noticed, been attracted, by the clever painting of Mr. Brodie, bearing the title of “May and December.” The original picture, which can throw sunshine but on one apartment, is now multipliedj and numerous cheerful rays may beam from the walls of humbler persons of taste, less fortunate than the possessor of the artist’s first conception. Mr. Simmons has well performed his task of transferring from the canvas to the plate, the spirit, the mind, the vis comica of the original, while the depth of the middle-tinting and flic chalklike softness of the flesh arc evidences of his skilful care in the mechanical details. The subject, we may observe, for the information of those who did not visit the Exhibition, is a fine ripe laughing lass, a long way in her “teens,” if not just coming out of them; her face, which smiles all over,” is turned full towards the spectator, and her half-delighted, lialf-misehievous eyes, arc glittering with a mixture of gratified vanity, and a sense of the ludicrous absurdity of the situation of licrsclf and licr aged innamorato. The latter is indeed “December” personified. Imagine a beetle-browed, heavy-featured sexagenarian, or perchance approximating the three-scorc-and-ten of man’s pilgrimage, bending, with the devotion of an idol-worshipper, over one of the plump hands of his earthly divinity, which lie holds in his gnarled and knotted fingers, and presses to his sensual lips, exposing over his artistically foreshortened face a polished cranium, denuded of its hirsute covering, except at the sides, where two fiercely brushed tufts of white hair still stand upright in admirable agreement with the organic- development of obstinacy in its general bony contour. The accessories of the picture are also suggestive : on the left, where the mischievous maiden is seated, are a modern flower-vase, a guitar, &c., and in the chimney glass is reflected the portrait of a moustached militaire (doubtless a suitor for the fair hand here in the cold grasp of winter), which looks down on the group with an expression of appealing regret. On the right of the old man is a tankard of elegant chasing, a pen, and inkstand, and the like emblems. As a composition the picture is excellent, and as a piece of genre paint- ing, and highly-finished engraving, “ May and December” is a most agreeable and talented work.—Morning Advertiser. PUBLISHED BY MESSRS. FORES, 41, PICCADILLY. (CORNER OF SACKYILLE STREET.) London: Printed by ITatuiison and Sons, 4r>, St. Martin’s Lane.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28126221_0010.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
