An apothecary riding a velocipede (bicycle) in the form of a pestle and mortar. Coloured etching, ca. 1819.

1819

1 print : etching, with watercolour

The doctors hobby.

An adaptation of a single scene in a collection of eight such scenes in a caricature attributed to William Heath, 'Every one his hobby plate 2d', 1819 (British Museum, Catalogue of satires, no. 13408, entry by Dorothy George ("a very thin apothecary, a medicine-bottle in his pocket, rides a mortar, using the pestle as a steering-rod"). The other scenes show different professions and types on velocipedes (Jew, sailor, alderman, dandy, Welshman, John Bull and Irishman). The present depiction is in reverse to that print: here the man is riding towards the viewer's left, where as in BM 13408 he is riding towards the right

Wellcome Collection 10953i