Trade card, invoice

Copper-engraved trade card with handwritten invoice on the reverse issued by the dairyman William Guest, located at the sign of the Ass & Foal in North Duke Street facing Grosvenor Square. The handwritten invoice on the reverse refers to the supply of assess milk to Robert Hucks between May 1757 and May 1767. The top vignette of the tradecard includes an engraving of an ass and her foal. The text is printed within a decorative cartouche that states that as well as being a supplier of asses and goats milk William Guest also buys and sells asses and sells or lets them to milk in 'town or country where gentlemen & ladies may be serv'd in the best manner at their own houses, any hour in the day'. Asses milk was popular in the 18th century. It was felt to be purer and more similar to breast milk than that of cows so was often given to babies.