Going to a Fight The Sporting World in all its variety of Style and Costume along the Road from Hyde Park Corner to Moulsey Hurst

Cruikshank, Isaac

Published by Sherwood, Neely & Jones, London, 1819

About this Item

Most unusual and uncommon sporting/processional scroll, with its narrow width of only 60 mm, and its length of slightly over 3,800 mm, which depicts four different scenes in its 42 numbered and conjoined separate pieces. The first, which accounts for over half of its length, is the parade to an outdoor boxing match. (This is actually a few distinct scenes, with clear breaks between them, but since they are all depicting a parade, one can virtually see them as a single unbroken parade, as we have chosen to do for purposes of this description and also to treat them as we believe most people would take them in.) Then there is the match held on an expansive river-side meadow. In this second scene is shown the final stage of the procession to the grounds, when the spectators and their vehicles had to cross the Thames, all in long rowboats. The third scene is of a man being thrown from a bull. This, we believe, was a sideshow to the main event. The last scene is of the more respectable element, probably the end of the day. In the first stretch of the scroll, we see coaches and other horse-drawn vehicles, some of which are rather eccentric and perhaps improvisational, men atop the coaches, men on horseback and on foot, a man pedalling an early bicycle. All kinds of street life and local color enliven the proceeding and distinguish this one from so many that are simply a stilted parade. Accidents and mishaps punctuate the event. Horses are spooked and kick up the dirt as they suddenly race. There are the high jinx of children. As fitting the march to a boxing match, there is a brawling incident. And there are spectators and bystanders that pull in a broad spectrum of London street life, and do so without making an express statement about it as would a formal costume book of the day. The second panorama of the scroll, the boxing match scene, is teeming with people and activity, the boxing match here is at the center but almost overshadowed by the fights erupting in the audience and other shenanigans. The bull fight is also teeming with movement and life. Only the fourth scene is somewhat staid, an intentional anti-climax, perhaps, and certainly a deliberate contrast to the two middle scenes. The scroll is housed in a wooden drum, with a boxing scene and the title on a paper pastedown attached to its side wall. The drum itself is a lovely piece of treen in and of itself, with its crown turning pin a fine piece of wood turned work. The drum is about 10 cm tall, and with the turning pin, about 12 cm tall, and it is about 5 cm in diameter. The paper pastedown illustration on the drum wall is very darkened, obscuring in particular the print at its base, but one can still with effort make out the words, and the same with the illustration of the boxing match. The wooden pull pin that was at the end of the scroll is now detached, along with a tiny amount of the paper part of the scroll -- this part is cloth backed, the cloth surely added later. The scroll itself is heavily darkened at the outer end, gradually lightening until the third conjoined panel at which the issue has gone away. Similarly, at the pull's end there are a number of closed tears vertical cracks along the edge, some paper repairs of these visible on the pictorial side, and also some staining, especially along the upper edge. This issue, or these issues, recedes but doesn't entirely disappear, by the third panel. The paper is such that it was susceptible to what we are describing as cracking, by way of explanation. Notwithstanding all the detailing of issues, we are comfortable describing the original object as Very Good, with the clear understanding that this is also in relation to other copies one might encounter. The modern clamshell box was very well constructed, and it remains in Fine condition. Scroll with wooden exterior, base, crown, sides. Housed in a modern clamshell box, quarter morocco, cloth boards, felt cushioning.

Seller Inventory # 19883

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Going to a Fight The Sporting World in all its variety of Style and Costume along the Road from Hyde Park Corner to Moulsey Hurst
• Publisher: Sherwood, Neely & Jones, London
• Publication Date: 1819
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Isaac Cruikshank
• Edition: First Edition.
• Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Seller catalogs:
  • Equestrian
  • Sporting
  • Color Plate Books