British Political Caricatures in Oil
Home Rule for Ireland.
England: Ca. 1914.
Price: $2,500.00
About the item
Original oil painting on canvas, unsigned, with caricatures of Asquith, John Redmond and Lloyd George, 19 1/2 x 30 inches, framed in gilt to 22 1/2 x 32 1/2 inches overall. 1 vols. British Political Caricatures in Oil. Fine condition. Roy Jenkins, Asquith, pp. 174-5, et seq.
Item #13670
A British political comment on the issue of Home Rule for Ireland. Amid celestial clouds a Union Jack-garbed figure of H.H. Asquith turns a grindstone on which a gleeful John Redmond in satanic wings sharpens a sword lettered “HOME RULE” as an angelic David Lloyd George flies away carrying by the coattails a small Irishman, shillelagh in hand.
Prime Minister Asquith introduced the Third Home Rule for Ireland Bill to the Commons in 1912, in part to oblige the Irish, on which his Liberal ministry depended. Redmond, leader of the Irish Nationalists, established a balance of power favorable to the Irish and passage of the bill seemed assured. Lloyd George, (then Chancellor of the Exchequer), aware of the heavily pro-English sentiment of Northern Ireland, and of the political dangers of forcing unwilling Protestants under Catholic rule, induced the parties to exempt Ulster from the provisions of the bill, which finally passed in this form.
This painting reflects the situation in early 1914: Redmond, with the aid of Asquith, prepares to sever Ireland from the mother country, while Lloyd George symbolically carries the pugnacious Catholic faithful away from the Protestant sanctuary of the North. It is, possibly, the original of a Conservative Party political poster.
A UNIQUE PIECE OF POLITICAL PROPAGANDA IN THE HIGHLY UNUSUAL MEDIUM OF OILS.
