[GREAT EXHIBITION] Mr. Goggleye’s Visit to the Exhibition of National Industry to be Held in London on the 1st of April 1851.

London, Timy. Takemin, Hyde Park, [1851]. Folding engraved panorama (113 x 210 mm, folding to 113 x 96 mm); a defective example, lacking the original boards and consequently with only 22 (of 23) engraved scenes; occasional browning and foxing, first panel chipped at left edge.

Thomas Onwhyn (1814-1886) was an English satirical artist, illustrator, engraver, and cartoonist. He produced this humorous panorama to coincide with the opening of the Great Exhibition. The protagonist, Mr. Goggleye, is a naive country gentleman who comes up to London to visit the Great Exhibition. He notes the most eccentric exhibits in his (imaginary catalogue), which are then illustrated by Onwhyn in his panorama. These include a scheme to open the North West Passage by digging a tunnel to be ‘lighted by gas from seal oil’; a machine for extracting sunbeams from cucumbers; and ‘Implements, for raising the wind’, a reference to the fever created by the California gold rush which shows an array of miners’ equipment.