Global Encounters and the Archives: Britain’s Empire in the Age of Horace Walpole

The Tea-Tax-Tempest, or, The Anglo-American Revolution, 1778

The artist presents female personifications of Africa, America, Asia, and Europe contemplating the effects of the British North American colonies' rebellion against the metropole's "Tea Tax" and "Stamp Act." Father Time uses a magic lantern (a projection device) to forecast an explosive outcome. "Europe" and "Asia," shown in intimate contact, scarcely acknowledge the scene; instead, they confer with one another, as though discussing an alliance. "Africa" expresses concern, her body casting a large shadow on the projection, perhaps indicative of the relationship of transatlantic slavery to empire. "America," figured as an indigenous woman with a bow resting at her side, reaches out from the shadows as though consigned to the periphery, even as her doppelganger in the projected scene (standing in for white British "America") reaches for the cap of "liberty." The presence of a turbaned man among the "American" forces on the right perhaps suggests that "Europe's" (or Britain's) supposed influence in Asia might be undermined by the American colonists' actions. Catalog Record

Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University Library

Carl Gottlieb Guttenberg