‘Capt. McQuhae’s celebrated friend’, by G. A. Sala (original) (raw)

This is George Augustus Sala’s satirical view (1850) of the Daedalus sighting. McQuhae is shown presenting his ‘celebrated friend’ for display at the Great Exhibition. Though a creature, it is really a gigantic corkscrew, an image that implies the sighting owes more to the bottle than to a real encounter. At the same time, Sala plays on maritime lore: ‘Mother Carey’s chickens’ were a sign of ill omen (another term for the sea petrel), and the Flying Dutchman is a ghost ship, another symbol of ill-fortune. In part joke and in part a curse, the serpent is indeed an ambiguous phenomenon. The design was engraved on wood and appeared in Sala’s first panorama, The Great Exhibition. Pen and pencil drawing. 2½ x 9½ inches. Reproduced with Permission of the British Museum. [Click on image to enlarge it.]

Image capture and text by Simon Cooke.

Bibliography

Sala, G. A. The Great Exhibition: ‘Wot it is to Be’. London: The Society for Keeping Things in Their Places, 1850.

Created 6 July 2021