- Museum number
- 1868,0808.12835
- Title
- Object: Gent, no gent & Re-gent!!
- Description
-
A sequence of three designs placed side by side. [1] As a 'Gent' the Prince is a handsome and stalwart young officer in the uniform of the 10th Light Dragoons of which he was Colonel, afterwards converted to a hussar regiment (see No. 10629). He stands in a landscape, the cloudy sky behind him irradiated by a rising sun. Cf. No. 8800 by Gillray.
[2] In the squalid room of a low tavern the Prince revels with Mrs. Fitzherbert and his boon companions. He sits on her lap, tipsily holding up a wine-glass; Fox, standing behind them, drunkenly empties a bottle over the glass. George Hanger sits on a chair, holding bottle and glass, his bludgeon and a watchman's broken lantern beside him. Sheridan stands behind. A table beside the Prince tilts so that cards and dice fall off. Below it grovels Norfolk, vomiting into a tub, beside which is a paper: 'Dean Swift's Maw Wallop' [filthy dish of food]. A wall-clock lit by a single candle shows that it is 4 or 5 a.m. On the wall are pasted: [1] a ballad, 'Black Joke'; [2] 'The Last Dying Speech for High Treason'; [3] 'Cock & Hen Club St Gilse's—Chairman George Whelp Deputy Charley Wag members Hanger—Sherry—Norfolk— Barrymore [see No. 7993, &c.]—Slender Billy—' He is fat and dishevelled, his loosened garter is inscribed 'Honi so[it]'. (8 1/8 x 3 7/8 in.)
[3] As Regent he sits enthroned under a canopy, grossly fat and supported on crutches (cf. No. 12714), his vast gouty legs resting on a cushion. Lady Hertford (see No. 11853, &c.), seated beside him (left), proffers a glass from a bowl of punch, while McMahon, tiny as usual, and standing on a stool, hands a glass of brandy from decanters (right) on a table, below which bottles are stacked. His 'Privy Purse', see No. 11874, hangs from his pocket. The Regent sits impassively, his eyes turned to the lady, who has huge breasts but is not otherwise caricatured. He wears uniform with the Garter ribbon and a great display of orders. On his head, resting on a pyramid of curls, is a Chinese head-dress, surmounted by a cone decorated with bells; his shoes are Chinese. A hint of whisker in [2] has developed into a furry border to his bulging cheeks. Above his head hangs one of the dragons of the Pavilion (see No. 12749), much burlesqued and with a tongue inscribed 'Taste'. (8 1/8 x 4 7/16 in.)
5 July 1816
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1816
- Dimensions
-
Height: 250 millimetres
-
Width: 348 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', IX, 1949)
[2] A repetition, exaggerated, of the imputations of caricature from the Prince's marriage to Mrs. Fitzherbert in 1785, see No. 6924, &c., to his temporary breach with the Foxites in 1792. For the Cock and Hen Club of the London underworld see No. 9309. (8 1/8 x 4 5/8 in.)
Reid, No. 589. Cohn, No. 1153.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1983/4 Oct-Jan, Hannover, Wilhelm Busch Museum, 'George Cruikshank'
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.12835