Item is a satirical caricature of Charles Flower, the Lord Mayor of London created by Thomas Rowlandson and published by Thomas Tegg. The print depicts Flower in a portrait bust at the center of a dying sunflower, rising from a tub of rancid butter and wheels of moldy and rotten cheese. The leaves and stem of the sunflower are inscribed negative qualities such as 'pernicious', 'lecherous', 'odious', and 'narrow minded'. Below the image is an accompanying poem:
The Flow'r of the City, so gaudy and fine
'Midst proud ones the proudest was erst known to shine
It spread its gay leaves, and it shewed its rich clothes
And to all (less in consequence) turn'd up its nose!
Till a blight, a sad blight, from a Democrat wind
Struck the Sensitive Plant both before and behind
It felt the keen blast! all its arrogance fled
And the Flow'r of the City hung, hung down its head!
The Flow'r of the City, thus doom'd to despair
Droops, pines, and with wailing empregnates the air!
Tells its pride and its folly (the cause of its grief)
While the tears of repentance encumber each leaf!
But in vain in its tears, of the fate it bemoans.
The world, the base world, gives but hisses and groans!
For ever! for ever! its proud hopes are fled.
And the Flow'r of the City hangs, hangs, down its head.