The Pantomime Players [School piece or Penmanship sheet]

This print had a border showing actors in costume. Above, three male figures loll on tables, accompanied by a small figure wearing a tall-eared cap. At center left and right are male and female commedia del'arte characters. Finally, a catouche below is flanked by a Roman solider and a bearded man wearing spectacles. Four calligraphic portraits in the corners are identified as "Sir Francis Wronghead," "Squire Richard," "Count Basset," and "John Moody" (characters in Colley Cibber's play "The Provok'd Husband: or a Journey to London"). The publisher Sayer's address engraved along the bottom: "near Serjeants Inn, Fleetstreet," indicates a date before 1748, when he moved to The Golden Buck, opposite Fetter Lane.
The work comes from a genre known as writing sheets, writing blanks, penmanship exercises, letter sheets or school pieces, published in Britain ca. 1660 to 1860 and used by students to demonstrate their handwriting abilities with example never used.