Saturday, June 2, 2018

James Gillray's Caricatures of Fashionable Life & Costume

James Gillray
"And catch the living Manners as they rise . . . "
1794
hand-colored etching and aquatint
British Museum

James Gillray
A Lady putting on her cap
1795
hand-colored etching
British Museum

James Gillray
Parasols for 1795
1795
hand-colored etching
British Museum

James Gillray (1757-1815) – Nothing is known of his early training beyond the fact that at a fitting age he was (like Hogarth) apprenticed to a letter-engraver.  Whether this was because he had shown a talent for drawing is not stated, but he seems to have begun to design during his apprenticeship.  Becoming tired of a monotonous employment, he ran away and joined a troop of strollers.  Quitting these again, after a brief experience, to enter himself as a student of the Royal Academy, he began speedily to acquire that grasp and knowledge of figure drawing which is one of his characteristics . . .  [From about 1782] until 1811, when he engraved his last plate, he continued to pour out the characteristic pictorial satires which for nearly thirty years delighted Londoners  . . .  The royal family, the court, the nobility, the ministry, 'all sorts and conditions of men,' were freely ridiculed by this daring censor, who, after publishing with Holland of Oxford Street, Fores of Piccadilly, and others, finally took up his residence with, and practically confined his efforts to, the establishment of Miss (by courtesy Mrs.) Hannah Humphrey . . .  Here, while the artist was working above in his eager, feverish way, often wounding his fingers by the 'burr' thrown up in the rapid progress of his needle over the copper, his brightly coloured works were dispensed in the shop beneath by Miss Humphrey or her giggling assistant, Betty Marshall.  One of his prints . . . represents the famous old shop, with its accustomed crowd outside (a crowd often so great that the passer-by had to quit the footway in order to get by).  . . .  Gillray continued to be an inmate of Miss Humphrey's house until he died.  She made a handsome income by his labours, and in return supplied her retiring and somewhat morose lodger with every requirement.  His health at length yielded to growing habits of intemperance, fostered, it is only charitable to suppose, by the constant strain upon his inventive powers, and about the end of 1811 he sank into comparative imbecility, passing a great part of the latter years of his life confined in an upper chamber of Miss Humphrey's house.

– extracts from the Dictionary of National Biography, edited by Leslie Stephen (1885)

James Gillray
Ladies' Dress as it soon will be
1796
hand-colored etching
British Museum

James Gillray
The Fashionable Mamma, or, The Convenience of Modern Dress
(wet-nurses having been superseded under the influence of Rousseau)
1796
hand-colored etching
British Museum

James Gillray
Lady Godina's Rout, or, Peeping Tom spying out Pope Joan
(the card game in progress was called 'Pope Joan')
1796
hand-colored etching and engraving
British Museum

James Gillray
Monstrosities of 1799 - Scene, Kensington Gardens
1799
hand-colored etching
British Museum

James Gillray
A Lyoness
(Polly Lyon de Symonds, née Goldsmid, daughter and wife of financiers)
1801
hand-colored etching
British Museum

James Gillray
A Master of Ceremonies, sketch'd at the Castle, Richmond
(Monsieur L'Amour, director of Assemblies at the Castle Inn, Richmond)
1803
hand-colored etching
British Museum

James Gillray
Progress of the Toilet - The Stays
1810
hand-colored etching
British Museum

James Gillray
Progress of the Toilet - The Wig
1810
hand-colored etching
British Museum

James Gillray
Progress of the Toilet - Dress Completed
1810
hand-colored etching
British Museum

James Gillray
Grace, Fashion, and Manners, from the Life
ca. 1810
hand-colored etching
British Museum

James Gillray
The Graces in a High Wind - a scene taken from Nature in Kensington Gardens
1810
hand-colored etching
British Museum