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We’ll have reduced opening hours from Thursday 18 until Saturday 20 August, due to strike action affecting UK transport networks. The galleries, Reading Room and café will close at 17:00 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The library will close at 17:00 on Thursday and Friday, and at 16:00 as usual on Saturday. Please check our opening times for more information.

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1 print : engraving, with etching ; platemark 21.3 x 15 cm

A young mother with her children in religious contemplation before a shrine of the Virgin and Child. Engraving by C. Rolls after P. Williams.

<p>"In the course of this year, Mr. Collins produced a picture, the success of which at once eclipsed the more moderate celebrity of all his former works; it was "The Sale of the Pet Lamb," purchased by Mr. Ogden. Composed as it was during the season immediately following his father's death, the simple yet impressive pathos it displayed, was a natural consequence of the temper of his mind at the period of its production. It pleased at once and universally. People ignorant of the simplest arcana of art, gazed on it as attentively and admiringly as the connoisseur who applauded the graces of its treatment, or the artist who appreciated the elaboration of its minutest parts. The sturdy urchin indignantly pushing away the butcher's boy, who reluctantly and good-humouredly presses forward to lead the dumb favourite of the family to the greedy slaughter-house; the girl, tearfully remonstrating with her mother, who, yielding to the iron necessities of want, is receiving from the master butcher the price of the treasured possession that is now forfeited for ever; the child offering to the lamb the last share of her simple breakfast that it can ever enjoy, were incidents which possessed themselves, unresisted, of the feelings of all who beheld them; from the youthful spectators who hated the butcher with all their souls, to the cultivated elders, who calmly admired the truthful ease with which the rustic story was told, or sympathized with the kindly moral which the eloquent picture conveyed. From this work, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1813, two engravings were produced; and from fourteen to fifteen thousand impressions of the smaller print alone were dispersed among the many who recollected it with admiration and delight."--Wilkie Collins Memoirs of the Life of William Collins R.A. vol I pp. 49-50, cited from http://www.web40571.clarahost.co.uk/wilkie/Family/petlambtext.htm</p>

1 print : engraving ; image 7.5 x 10.4 cm

A family are saddened by the sale of their pet lamb. Engraving by C. Rolls after W. Collins, 1813.

1 print : line engraving ; platemark 18.4 x 13.1 cm

A phrenologist at work on a girl, surrounded by members of her family. Engraving by C. Rolls after E. Sharpe, c. 1830.

1 print : engraving ; image 38.6 x 30.4 cm

A group of urchins have caused havoc in a farmyard and killed a cockerel but they are pursued by the dog and a man with a birch stick. Engraved by Charles Rolls after Alexander Fraser.

<p>An episode in 'Leila, or the siege of Granada' by Edward Bulwer Lytton (London and Paris: Longman and Delloy, 1838, p.158)--British Museum catalogue</p>

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A young mother with her children in religious contemplation before a shrine of the Virgin and Child. Engraving by C. Rolls after P. Williams.

A family are saddened by the sale of their pet lamb. Engraving by C. Rolls after W. Collins, 1813.

A phrenologist at work on a girl, surrounded by members of her family. Engraving by C. Rolls after E. Sharpe, c. 1830.

A group of urchins have caused havoc in a farmyard and killed a cockerel but they are pursued by the dog and a man with a birch stick. Engraved by Charles Rolls after Alexander Fraser.

A man looking at a magic dial. Engraving by C. Rolls after D. Maclise.

A young couple visit a fortune teller to have their future predicted. Engraving by Charles Rolls after Alfred Johannot.

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A young mother with her children in religious contemplation before a shrine of the Virgin and Child. Engraving by C. Rolls after P. Williams.

A family are saddened by the sale of their pet lamb. Engraving by C. Rolls after W. Collins, 1813.

A phrenologist at work on a girl, surrounded by members of her family. Engraving by C. Rolls after E. Sharpe, c. 1830.

A group of urchins have caused havoc in a farmyard and killed a cockerel but they are pursued by the dog and a man with a birch stick. Engraved by Charles Rolls after Alexander Fraser.

A man looking at a magic dial. Engraving by C. Rolls after D. Maclise.

A young couple visit a fortune teller to have their future predicted. Engraving by Charles Rolls after Alfred Johannot.

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