The Oracle

The Irish-born Dixon relies on allegory to comment on the growing rift between Britain and its American colonies. Father Time uses a Magic Lantern to project an image that celebrates Concord triumphing over Discord for female embodiments of Britannia, Scotia (Scotland), Hibernia (Ireland), and America. Basing the print on his own design, the artist showed an impression at London's Society of Artists rooms on the Strand in April and May 1774.

Seated at left Scotia and Hibernia express concern but receive reassurance from Britannia. Only America, perched on a bale of trade goods apart from the others, seems alarmed. The procession on the screen centers on George III as Concord—a crowned figure who holds an unstrung bow and wears a Garter Star. Accompanying the king are Plenty, who holds a cornucopia, and Liberty with a Phrygian Cap atop a staff—suggesting Britain’s political ideals and commercial wealth. Truth with a mirror and Justice with pair of scales follow, near putti who hold a banner lettered "Publick Credit," an orrery, and implements used in painting, sculpture, and architecture to symbolize Britain’s financial, scientific, and artistic achievements. At right, Fame blows a trumpet to force threatening forms associated with American discord to flee—a two-headed man with a reptilian tongue, a demon with flames for hair, and a hissing serpent.

Dixon conceived this image as Britain absorbed news of the Boston Tea Party, which had taken place on December 16, 1773. Parliament saw the event as an attack on East India Company property and responded by closing Boston's port and passing the Intolerable Acts to restrict colonial self-government. While American colonists were not the intended audience for this print, many would no longer have seen George III as a bringer of peace and prosperity. Viewers of all political stripes would have recognized the serpent at lower right as a symbol of America. Two decades before, Benjamin Franklin centered a political cartoon titled "Join or Die" on a dismembered snake and Dixon intends his rearing serpent to signal the colony’s untested strength.

Interestingly, the Met’s collection contains a second impression of this print (83.2.2083) where an unidentified artist overpainted Father Time’s hopeful projection to turn it into a warlike scene. This change must have followed the outbreak of conflict in Massachusetts in the spring and summer of 1775. Dixon’s image was also copied many times; examples in the collection include an anonymous French print of ca. 1775 (83.2.2810 and 24.90.1426), an engraving by Carl Guttenberg issued in Nuremberg in 1778 (83.2.2081 and 83.2.2082), and　an anonymous British print of 1783 (83.2.2094).