Engraved illustrated copperplate poem publicising the opening of the Fullers' Temple of Fancy.

Bifolium (leaf dimensions 24.5 x 18 cm), 3 pp, on paper watermarked 1817. Text and image clear and complete on grubby and lightly-creased paper. The two leaves have been gummed to one another along a thin vertical strip, and it may be that they were originally separate. An unusual and scarce piece of ephemera. At the head of the first page is a characteristic neo-classical engraving (roughly 7.5 x 11.5 cm) showing a group of five cherub-artists, holding portolio, palette and bust, appealing to a winged goddess on a cloud, with a temple in the background. The text consists of ninety lines arranged in couplets, beginning 'The Goddess of Fancy her compliments sends | To all her admirers and fanciful friends | And begs to inform them, that she has completed | A Temple in which all her guests may be treated.' Describes the delights to be had at the Temple, for 'all people of fashion', 'Commoners', 'the Lounger', 'the grave son of Galen', 'The Reverend Divine', 'the Juvenile throng', Sportsman, Soldier and Sailor. '34, Rathbone Place.' at end of poem. The National Portrait Gallery website contains an excellent account of the firm, which it describes as 'one of the leading print publishing businesses of Regency and early Victorian London', whose 'trade as artists' colourmen was mainly in watercolours and drawing materials'. This item is presumably what it describes as a 'three-page leaflet was aimed at male customers (Heal coll. 100.30, watermark 1817)'.