#James Gillray

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James Gillray (1756-1815), 'The Powerful Arm of Providence: An Allegorical Print, Applicable to the Year 1831', 1800 "Satire: Providence dropping her flowers on England, at end of rainbow, with storm raging in sky and 'cosmic' hand reaching out from behind cloud to crush solar system" Source

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Un petit souper, a la Parisienne; - or - a family of sans-culotts refreshing, after the fatigues of the day (detail) by James Gillray, published by Hannah Humphrey

hand-coloured etching, published 20 September 1792

11 1/4 in. x 14 1/4 in. (287 mm x 362 mm) paper size

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James Gillray | Public Domain Review

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James Gillray - Shakespeare Sacrificed, 1789.

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Historian Alice Loxton explaining this political satire of Napoleon and William Pitt the Younger, 1805, by James Gillray. Displayed at the London Original Print Fair.

She calls it “one of the most famous political cartoons ever made.”

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Geography Bewitched! or, a droll caricature map of England & Wales, Robert Dighton, 1795

Britannia, James Gillray, 1791

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That one James Gillray cartoon that I just reblogged a video about is the most famous but that's a shame because that particular drawing does not even come close to representing how insane your average cartoon by Gillray is. for instance here is something that he drew to warn people about what was going to happen if the French Revolution was replicated in Britain,

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James Gillray, The bow of a three-decker; part of a ship with figure-head at left. Pen and grey ink, with grey and pale buff wash, made 1772-1794 (British Museum).

Adam Smith had a lot of interesting things to say about sailors in The Wealth of Nations (1776):

The lottery of the sea is not altogether so disadvantageous as that of the army. The son of a creditable laborer or artificer may frequently go to sea with his father's consent; but if he enlists as a soldier, it is always without it.

But he dates himself with statements like: "The great admiral is less the object of public admiration than the great general; and the highest success in the sea service promises a less brilliant fortune and reputation than equal success in the land." (Obviously this is before the Royal Navy was respectable enough to have a king's son as a midshipman, and other aristocracy who crowded its ranks post-Battle of Trafalgar).

After a mention of sea captains being less in "common estimation" than army colonels, this passage about sailors rings true for the early 19th century:

Common sailors, therefore, more frequently get some fortune and preferment than common soldiers; and the hope of those prizes is what principally recommends the trade. Though their skill and dexterity are much superior to that of almost any artificers, and though their whole life is one continual scene of hardship and danger, yet for all this dexterity and skill, for all those hardships and dangers, while they remain in the condition of common sailors, they receive scarce any other recompense but the pleasure of exercising the one and of surmounting the other. Their wages are not greater than those of common laborers at the port which regulates the rate of seamen's wages.

Thomas Rowlandson, Ships and Sailors (late 18th century-early 19th century), The Met.

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A great Stream from a Petty-Fountain;-or-John Bull swamped in the flood of new-taxes:-cormorants fishing in the stream.

Satirical print, James Gillray, 1806.

(via British Museum)

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James Gillray

[thefugitivesaint]

James Gillray (1756-1815), 'Die Gicht' (The Gout), ''Mit Horrohr und Spritze'', 1921

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Modern Grace, or, The Operatical Finale to the Ballet of Alonzo e Caro James Gillray (British; 1756–1815) Hand-colored etching on wove paper, 1796 Yale University Library, The Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington, Connecticut

Publisher: Hannah Humphrey, New Bond Street, London

“Didelot dances on the stage between two women, both very lightly clad in quasi-classical costume, and wearing ‘cothurnes.’ He wears a feathered hat, tunic, and cloak, and looks towards Mme Parisot (right); she strikes an attitude with right leg raised and arms extended, and looks alluringly towards him, her right breast bare. Mme Rose (left), his wife, dances with more restraint, her sharp-featured profile turned austerely towards her husband. All wave their arms above their heads, and their attitudes are in fact graceful (though caricatured). Two plump ‘danseuses’ (left and right) whirl on one toe in the background. Behind Didelot is an irradiated sun, with features looking down disapprovingly at the dancer.” — British Museum online catalogue

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[yourbespokeartisanalapocalypse]

The duchess and duke in question are Frederica Charlotte, the oldest daughter of the King of Prussia, and her husband, Prince Frederick, the Duke of York and second son of England's King George and Queen Charlotte.

You can read the story behind it here.

James Gillray - Fashionable contrasts; -or- the duchess's little shoe yielding to the magnitude of the duke's foot (1792)

[mysterious-secret-garden]

James Gillray - A Peep into the Cave of Jacobinism, or Magna est Veritas et praevalebit, 1798.