A Long Minuet as Danced at Bath (BM J,6.76 04)

A strip design of ten couples in different stages of the minuet, All dance in silence; the expressions of the male dancers denote anxiety, determination, or complacency. All are intended to be ugly, or awkward, or both, but the figures have charm, and even in some cases a certain grace. Above the design is engraved: 'Bos', 'Fur', 'Sus', 'atque Sacerdos'. None of the men suggests a parson, most are lean and none corpulent by eighteenth-century standards. Beneath the title is engraved: 'Longa Tysonum Minuit Quid Velit et possit rerum concordia discors. Horace.' 25 June 1787

Stipple printed on four plates joined together