DOI issue:
September 14, 1878
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17733#0114
110
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [September 14, 1878.
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE JACK SPRATTS.
A Tale of Modern Art and Fashion.
p TT 0£uthe Art critics, some proclaimed in him the advent of the long-
1 art ll. yearned-for nineteenth century genius, whose holy mission it was to
It happened one day that Jack Spratt's beautiful lay figure had redeem the Art of our day from the loathsome degradation into which
to go back to its maker's, in order to be cleaned, mended, and re- it had fallen; and with the generous intolerance of youth, branded
stuffed; and the happy thought occurred to Jack Spratt that he as snobs and ruffians those who could not quite agree with them;
might as well take a respite from serious Art-work and paint a por- ' others with the calm benignity of age, pronounced both Jack and
trait of his wife, as she sat there darning one of his socks and reading j his admirers to be perfectly harmless, but incurably imbecile ; so
aloud from a black-letter edition of Jack and the Bean Stalk, whose
adventures never seemed to pall on the Spratts and their friends.
Now Mrs. Spratt's form and features had not been cast in an
early Italian mould ; her maiden name was Maloney, and her papa
that old friends quarrelled, and united families fell out, and all the
world was set by the ears through Jack Spratt's little sock-darner ;
dealers came down on his studio like the wolf on the fold ; and so
great was the crowd round this picture, that the Royal Academy
had kept a leading oil and Italian warehouse in Finsbury; which stationed a couple of mounted Policemen near it, a thing which had
was, indeed, the only Italian feature in the family. Her mother never been done in Burlington House before; and many a shilling
had been a lovely Lancashire lass ; and Mrs. Spratt had raven hair, i they brought to the Royal Academy—those two mounted Policemen;
violet eyes, ruby lips, an ivory brow, and a skin made of the whitest
lily and the reddest rose. Her little head was poised on a long thick
creamy neck, while her tall supple figure erred if at all on the side
of a too superabundant exuberance ; but her waist was very small,
and so were her proudly arched feet; and her dimpled little white
hands had not been made for sock-darning, or any such house
drudgery; but to be tightly-gloved in all that Paris can furnish of
the best in perfumed kid, five and three-quarters, gris perle.
It is, perhaps, too much to say that Jack Spratt did the same
s
and a very happy thought it was to have them there !
The upshot of all this was, that the plucky Baronet, who had
purchased the little sock-darner, called at Jack's studio with his
Lady, and they were much charmed with all they saw. Thi
Baronet could not only tell a pretty picture when he was told, but
also a pretty face when he saw one. Most Baronets are equal to
that; aud as for my Lady, a good-natured and impulsive person,
she was quite beside herself .with delight at the notion of Genius
painting :Beauty, while Beauty darned the socks of Genius. She
justice to all these charms as he had always done to those of his lay ! immediately looked upon Mr. and Mrs. Jack Spratt as a pet little
figure; but he produced something so different from anything he
had ever produced before, that the trusty friends, who were scanda-
lised beyond measure, repeatedly exclaimed that if that were Art,
then the Old Masters must be wrong .'
Jack Spratt, however, in spite of the trusty friends, had it
framed, called it " Ye Phayre Sockque-dqrrenere" and forwarded
it to the Royal Academy, much as he scorned that institution ; and
the Royal Academicians, who had persistently rejected, year after
year, the pictures Jack Spratt and his friends had as persistently
sent there, accepted this one ; and owing, perhaps to a little differ-
ence among themselves about one of their own works, hung it on the
line, in a place of honour in the large room, No. 3, where it made
such a sensation that a plucky Baronet bought it at the private
view.
Thus Jack woke up one morning, and found himself famous.
invention of her own; and before she had been five minutes in their
company, invited them to a " small and early" at her mansion, in
Belgrave Square. By this time also the Spratts' life-long prejudice
against the aristocracy had quite evaporated; and they accepted
this invitation with alacrity.
Well, the Spratts duly attended that'1 small and early," attired in
their very best. Mr. Punch forgets what Mrs. Spratt's very best
consisted of at this particular period of her career ; but rather thinks
it must have been a broidered wimple, surcinctured with a golden
liripipe over a welted chaisel-smock of watchet sergedusoy, lined
with shalloon, and edged with vair, or possibly ermine.
Jack Spratt so far gave way to the conventionalities of modern
life as to wear a gent's evening suit complete for three-seventeen-
six (made to order by a suburban tailor for this special occasion),
and put a smart peacock's feather in his button-hole. At the same
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [September 14, 1878.
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE JACK SPRATTS.
A Tale of Modern Art and Fashion.
p TT 0£uthe Art critics, some proclaimed in him the advent of the long-
1 art ll. yearned-for nineteenth century genius, whose holy mission it was to
It happened one day that Jack Spratt's beautiful lay figure had redeem the Art of our day from the loathsome degradation into which
to go back to its maker's, in order to be cleaned, mended, and re- it had fallen; and with the generous intolerance of youth, branded
stuffed; and the happy thought occurred to Jack Spratt that he as snobs and ruffians those who could not quite agree with them;
might as well take a respite from serious Art-work and paint a por- ' others with the calm benignity of age, pronounced both Jack and
trait of his wife, as she sat there darning one of his socks and reading j his admirers to be perfectly harmless, but incurably imbecile ; so
aloud from a black-letter edition of Jack and the Bean Stalk, whose
adventures never seemed to pall on the Spratts and their friends.
Now Mrs. Spratt's form and features had not been cast in an
early Italian mould ; her maiden name was Maloney, and her papa
that old friends quarrelled, and united families fell out, and all the
world was set by the ears through Jack Spratt's little sock-darner ;
dealers came down on his studio like the wolf on the fold ; and so
great was the crowd round this picture, that the Royal Academy
had kept a leading oil and Italian warehouse in Finsbury; which stationed a couple of mounted Policemen near it, a thing which had
was, indeed, the only Italian feature in the family. Her mother never been done in Burlington House before; and many a shilling
had been a lovely Lancashire lass ; and Mrs. Spratt had raven hair, i they brought to the Royal Academy—those two mounted Policemen;
violet eyes, ruby lips, an ivory brow, and a skin made of the whitest
lily and the reddest rose. Her little head was poised on a long thick
creamy neck, while her tall supple figure erred if at all on the side
of a too superabundant exuberance ; but her waist was very small,
and so were her proudly arched feet; and her dimpled little white
hands had not been made for sock-darning, or any such house
drudgery; but to be tightly-gloved in all that Paris can furnish of
the best in perfumed kid, five and three-quarters, gris perle.
It is, perhaps, too much to say that Jack Spratt did the same
s
and a very happy thought it was to have them there !
The upshot of all this was, that the plucky Baronet, who had
purchased the little sock-darner, called at Jack's studio with his
Lady, and they were much charmed with all they saw. Thi
Baronet could not only tell a pretty picture when he was told, but
also a pretty face when he saw one. Most Baronets are equal to
that; aud as for my Lady, a good-natured and impulsive person,
she was quite beside herself .with delight at the notion of Genius
painting :Beauty, while Beauty darned the socks of Genius. She
justice to all these charms as he had always done to those of his lay ! immediately looked upon Mr. and Mrs. Jack Spratt as a pet little
figure; but he produced something so different from anything he
had ever produced before, that the trusty friends, who were scanda-
lised beyond measure, repeatedly exclaimed that if that were Art,
then the Old Masters must be wrong .'
Jack Spratt, however, in spite of the trusty friends, had it
framed, called it " Ye Phayre Sockque-dqrrenere" and forwarded
it to the Royal Academy, much as he scorned that institution ; and
the Royal Academicians, who had persistently rejected, year after
year, the pictures Jack Spratt and his friends had as persistently
sent there, accepted this one ; and owing, perhaps to a little differ-
ence among themselves about one of their own works, hung it on the
line, in a place of honour in the large room, No. 3, where it made
such a sensation that a plucky Baronet bought it at the private
view.
Thus Jack woke up one morning, and found himself famous.
invention of her own; and before she had been five minutes in their
company, invited them to a " small and early" at her mansion, in
Belgrave Square. By this time also the Spratts' life-long prejudice
against the aristocracy had quite evaporated; and they accepted
this invitation with alacrity.
Well, the Spratts duly attended that'1 small and early," attired in
their very best. Mr. Punch forgets what Mrs. Spratt's very best
consisted of at this particular period of her career ; but rather thinks
it must have been a broidered wimple, surcinctured with a golden
liripipe over a welted chaisel-smock of watchet sergedusoy, lined
with shalloon, and edged with vair, or possibly ermine.
Jack Spratt so far gave way to the conventionalities of modern
life as to wear a gent's evening suit complete for three-seventeen-
six (made to order by a suburban tailor for this special occasion),
and put a smart peacock's feather in his button-hole. At the same