A Scene at Mother Olivers

This print is either so rare or so lewd and disturbing that it did not even make it into the Bohn Edition "Suppressed Plates." It shows baronet and horse owner Sir Frank Standish at Mother Oliver's brothel in perhaps as thoroughly compromising a position as can be imagined.

A Scene at Mother Olivers

A Scene at Mother Olivers [~1800?]
© Trustees of the British Museum

Standish can be identified by his similarity to the man in the portrait caricature, A Standing Dish at Boodles published in 1800 but also by the picture of the racehorse, Eagle, behind him. According to Thoroughbred Bloodlines, Eagle was bred by Standish and ran successfully for him for seven years beginning around 1798.

Standish is shown with his breeches down, standing before a bed, about to fondle a bare-breasted young prostitute. His expression, however, is neither eager nor joyful. In spite of what appears to be a sexual stimulant (cantharides?) on the table behind him, he is openly apprehensive. "By G[od] I doubt whether I can F[uck], am damnably afraid I shall S[hit]e." As if anticipating that potential result, the young woman is tying a sizeable sack around Standish's posterior. And it is surely no accident that the picture of the stallion behind him also shows the horse dropping turds.

The print is unsigned and undated, but since it uses the same caricature profile as A Standing Dish at Boodles, it was likely created around the same time, circa 1800. The absence of any publication line and the rarity of the print both suggest that it was privately circulated, presumably to embarrass Standish. But why it was created and at whose behest can only be a matter of speculation. Standish seems to have had little interest or involvement in anything but horse-racing, so whatever enemies he had would probably have come from the owners of other horses. And those people would also have had the money to commission such a print. But what he could have done to warrant such a specific and personal attack is hard to fathom.

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