The Royal Academicians. A Farce. As It Was Performed To the Astonishment of Mankind, by His Majesty's Servants, at the Stone House, in Utopia, in the Summer of 1786. -
London:: Printed by Denew and Grant, No. 91, Wardour-street; and sold by J. Bew, Paternoster Row; T. Hook-ham, Corner of Bruton Street, New Bond Street; and R. Jameson, No. 227, Strand, near Temple Bar. [Price One Shilling.], (1786)
Physical Description
44 p.; 209 mm. (Quarto.)
Contents
[T.p.] - Invocation To St. Luke ... (May 1st, 1786, by Anthony Pasquin) - Prologue - Dramatis Personæ - [Text]; [booksellers' advertisement].
Responsibility Note
The pen-name of 'Anthony Pasquin' was adopted in 1786 by the artist and writer, John Williams (1754-1818).
References
ESTC, T76349
ESTC, T76350 [2nd. ed.].
S.M. Bennett, 'Anthony Pasquin and the Function of Art Journalism in Late Eighteenth-Century England', in British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 8 (1985), p.197-207.
Summary Note
The date of 1786 is also given at the end of the Invocation.
This satire on the Royal Academy takes the form of a drama in one act.
The work is decorated with a title-page vignette showing a faun carrying a bow, and a large goose, crowned, wearing a medal marked 'Diploma' round its neck and stuck with two arrows.
A second edition was published in the same year, with a slightly re-set title-page. An expanded version was published in 1796 in the collection entitled 'An Authentic History Of The Professors Of Painting ... By Anthony Pasquin'.
Reproductions
An electronic reproduction was published in 2003 (Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale). A microfilm version was published in 1983 (Woodbridge CT: Research Publications).