3-021-015 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"The Last Lot", by G. H. Thomas, in the general exhibition of water-colour drawings, Dudley Gallery, 1868. Engraving of a painting. 'Here there is...an incident so sorry and humble that the pathos of it merges into the humorous. "The Last Lot"- the very last - a poor old grey Dobbin that had been passed by, despised and rejected by all the many purchasers of the horse-fair, has at last found an owner, and is being led past the booths and caravans which skirt the fair towards the new home. Alas! he might have hoped for another last and common lot that would, perchance, have given him the honour of furnishing forth a hippophagic feast. For, surely, he is nearly, if not quite, past work. That halting pause, that low-bowed head and labouring nostril, and the general configuration of the poor beast prove that he is the subject of many of the worst ills that horseflesh is heir to. And the owner - what must his "lot" be in other respects to have been able to make no better bargain. That poor old "son of the soil" seems as badly used and sadly worn as his purchase. What a satire on pictures of bucolic felicity in general! What a moral for those who preach on agrarian happiness and discourse on the thriving condition of the agricultural interest!' From "Illustrated London News", 1868.