#rip frank marryat you would have loved the internet

[marryat92]

YE SKIPPÈRE

With artistic credit to Frank Marryat, one of the Captain's sons: an utterly ridiculous 1840s portrait of Frederick Marryat at home in Langham, Norfolk where he spent his last years.

This isn't the first time I've shared Frank Marryat's art, he also drew "A Happy Family." Both pictures are reproduced in Tom Pocock's book Captain Marryat: Seaman, Writer, and Adventurer—but only in the print version, not the ebook—and are printed in greyscale, although they may have originally been in colour. The source is given as the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, but I can't find any references on the NMM website.

In the spirit of Eighteen-Forties Friday, Frank's artwork of his father demonstrates that 1840s pop culture was not only fascinated with medieval aesthetics: they could also spoof it in Ye Olde Memes. Marryat holds "ye snuffe" tobacco in one hand, and "ye Peter Simple" and "ye Jacob Faithful" represented as scrolls in his pocket are "ye wittie sayings." He has ye mansion (Langham Manor Cottage, no longer standing), ye croppes, and ye Dumple—his slightly notorious pet horse, Dumpling.

And there is literally a snail. (You can't have medieval marginalia without one!) The bottle of "ye soda" on the ground was unexpected, but soda fountains in pharmacies existed at the time, and sweetened carbonated beverages as well as mineral waters were commercially produced and sold in the early 19th century.