Original hand-coloured satirical engraving featuring the Prince Regent, entitled 'Princely Predilections or Ancient Music and Modern Discord.'

George *11864; Reid *155; Cohn *732. Printed on one side of a piece of wove paper roughly 54 x 22 cm, dimensions of print 47 x 18.5 cm. Engraved at the sides of the caption beneath the print: 'Pubd. April 1st 1812 by M Jones No 5 Newgate Stt. | G. Cruikshank fect.' Image clear and entire, on aged paper with creasing to extremities, and with one 4.5 cm closed tear in bottom left-hand corner. A spirited depiction of a large group, with a grotesquely inebriated Prince Regent at the centre, obese and with whiskers, passing out and in the process of being revived with curacoa by a gentleman wearing a sash reading 'Widows Friend | Privy Purse'. To his left an imperious lady announces 'Well: since you have got rid of your OLD FRIENDS, Howe [sic] do you like your New Ones?' The Prince replies 'Not at all D-N them! Not at all!!!!' The Prince is reined in from behind by a buxom princess, besides whom a man in Scottish dress announces 'Behold the gracious Quean of Love.' To the right of the print is a drunked figure (clearly Sheridan) with bloated face and red nose, in harlequin's costume. In the background towards the left is Death, holding a spear with the banner 'Walchren'. At the far left a parson reading 'Sermon on Drunkness | Sunday Next'. A total of six speech bubbles, one of which (that of the princess holding the Prince Regent's reins) has been erased and filled in. Scarce.