Other posts from last year:
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
Ascending Into Heaven. William T. Horton, A Book of Images.
The Angel of Death. William T. Horton, A Book of Images. What a beautiful eye!
Temptation. William T. Horton, A Book of Images.
Demons and lords of hell seem to be popular whenever I post them, so when the whim strikes, we’ll have a bit of demonology. It’s of interest to note that christians are consistent, even when dreaming up the aristocracy of christian hell – there aren’t any women. Given how much christianity condemns women, Eve, sin, awful evil, temptresses, harlots, yada, yada, yada, it doesn’t seem right we didn’t even merit a place in the aristocracy of hell. Today, we have Purson, also known as Pruflas in the Dictionnaire Infernal.
Purson (also Curson, Pursan) is a Great King of Hell, being served and obeyed by twenty-two legions of demons. He knows of hidden things, can find treasures, and tells past, present and future. Taking a human or aerial body he answers truly of all secret and divine things of Earth and the creation of the world. He also brings good familiars. Purson is depicted as a man with the face of a lion, carrying a ferocious viper in his hand, and riding a bear. Before him there can be heard many trumpets sounding.
And naked. No one mentions the naked. From the Ars Goetia, Lesser Key of Solomon.
St. George. William T. Horton, A Book of Images.
Mammon. William T. Horton, A Book of Images.
All Thy Waves Are Gone Over Me. William T. Horton, A Book of Images.
Midas, Transmuting all into Paper, James Gillray, 9 March 1797.
In 1820 a satirical pamphlet called ‘Satan’s Bank Note’ appeared on the streets of London. Accompanied by a woodcut engraving of five men being executed with the devil sitting on the gallows, the pamphlet offered a biting commentary on the epidemic of forgery trials that had broken out in Britain in the years following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The anonymous author lays the blame entirely at the door of the Bank of England and its biggest debtor, the government of the day:
Near London’s ’Change there is a house,
(To name it I’m unwilling)
Where RAGS are sold, and for each Pound
John Bull gives twenty shillings.
George Cruikshank Bank Restriction Note, published 1819. © Bank of England Museum.
Diana. William T. Horton, A Book of Images.
The Path to the Moon. William T. Horton, A Book of Images.
The Viaduct. William T. Horton, A Book of Images.
The Gap. William T. Horton, A Book of Images.