It was the two hundredth anniversary of the death of James
Gillray this week. Gillray was one of the leading political cartoonists of the
18th Century and so good at it was he that his images are still
influencing cartoonists today. Many since have paid homage to one of his most
famous images, The Plumb-pudding in
danger, which depicts William
Pitt and Napoleon Bonaparte carving up the globe as though it was a joint of
meat. Steve Bell paid tribute with an updated version in the Guardian this week;
The Baked Bean in danger, replacing
Pitt with David Cameron and Napoleon with Nicola Sturgeon.
Gillray was an etcher (which makes him even more interesting
to me) and sold his prints from Mrs Humphrey’s Print Shop. Miss Hannah Humphrey,
publisher and print seller, is another fascinating character; unconventional
(for those times) in business as in her personal life, taking risks in both.
She and Gillray lived together above the shop which occupied three different
locations during its existence. Apparently, they trooped off to church to get
married on a couple of occasions but Gillray thought better of it on the way.
Here’s an interesting blog about Mrs H. I would like to know more about her. I feel I’m rather doing her down by
mentioning her living arrangements rather than focusing on her business acumen…
I’ll come back to that in a future post.
Gillray’s final years weren’t cheery ones. When his eyesight
began to fail, he wasn’t able to produce work of sufficient quality to
satisfy his exacting standards. He became depressed, began to drink and descended into
madness, producing no further etchings in his last few years. Ever devoted, Mrs
H looked after him until he died in 1815, following him to the eternal print
shop shortly after in 1818. Maybe this is a cautionary tale for etchers… though I guess there
wasn’t much he could have done about his eyesight back then. We are much more
fortunate these days with modern medicine and technology. It does worry me as I
get older though, and now that I have to have special glasses to work on
etching plates...
There is an element of satire in my last PB print, Requires Improvement (petty bureaucracy and
the things that stop us doing what we should be doing). I’m not sure that
it’s necessarily political, though it does deal in part with the insane burdens
placed on local government by central government agencies. My next print will
be more of a social satire – if that’s a thing. Watch out for the henchspider…
don’t get trapped in his web.
James Gillray ~ Two-penny whist.
Mrs Humphrey modelled for one of the women in this etching
