The Bostonian's paying the excise-man, or tarring & feathering – Antique Print
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
The Bostonian's paying the excise-man, or tarring & feathering comes to life in this historic print, reproduced from the original with every detail intact. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.
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The Bostonian's paying the excise-man, or tarring & feathering
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The title names the scene directly: a Boston man being tarred and feathered for "paying the excise-man," a sharp joke on the tea duties that colonists refused to accept. The print is a London mezzotint dated October 31, 1774, issued by the map and printseller Robert Sayer and John Bennett on Fleet Street. Its publication came in the months after the Boston Tea Party and the Intolerable Acts had hardened British opinion, and London print shops sold such caricatures to a public eager for mockery of American resistance. Tarring and feathering was a punishment mob violence inflicted on Crown officials and their supporters in Boston, so the image shows how English satirists read those events back home.
| Created / published | London : Printed for Robt. Sayer & J. Bennett, Map & Printseller, No. 53, Fleet Street as the Act directs, 1774 Octr. 31. |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 print : mezzotint. |
| Genre | Cartoons (Commentary) British 1770-1780.Mezzotints British 1770-1780. |
| Notes | Title from item. Plate I. Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires, v. 5, no. 5232 Forms part of: British Cartoon Prints Collection (Library of Congress). Published in: The American Revolution in drawings and prints; a checklist of 1765-1790 graphics in the Library of Congress / Compiled by Donald H. Cresswell, with a foreword by Sinclair H. Hitchings. Washington : [For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off.], 1975, no. 670. |
| Subjects | Tarring & feathering--Massachusetts--Boston--1770-1780. Customs employees--Massachusetts--Boston--1770-1780. Tea--Massachusetts--1770-1780. United States--History--Revolution, 1775-1783. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 1,043 × 1,536 px · prints to 3 × 5 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-111415 |
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