- Museum number
- 1861,1012.157
- Title
- Object: Le charlatan politique ou le léopard apprivoisé
- Description
-
A French print. On the sea-shore the English leopard ('L'Angleterre') stands on a platform which rests on a pile of casks and bales. On his back sit the royal family. His nose is held by Pitt, who stands (left) on high stilts and in his left hand extends horizontally a long sceptre. Pitt, the leopard, and its riders are burlesqued; the animal's tail extends to the margin of the design, and nine members of the family are supported on it. Pitt is very thin; his hair rises on his head in terror (cf. BMSat 8434). 'George' sits next the animal's neck, wearing spurred riding-boots and a crown, which is falling from his head; he flourishes a staff with the head, cap, and bells of a fool, turning his head in profile with a melancholy expression. 'Charlotte Femme de George' sits beside him, full-face, hunched together with folded arms; her fingers are sharp talons. Next, straight and lank, his feet nearly reaching the ground, is 'Yorck', weeping copiously, a finger to his eye; he holds with his left hand the hilt of a large sword whose point is bent up in a hook (cf. BMSat 8341). Behind him sits astride the 'Femme d'Yorck'. Next sits the '[Prince] de Galle' wearing a large hat, less caricatured and less distressed than the others. The remaining nine on the leopard's tail are styled 'les Enfans de George' [bis], and have little relation to the age or sex of the princes and princesses. The first and third wear long trousers and gnaw at large (?) loaves with fanglike teeth. The second is a young woman drinking from a bottle; the fourth resembles her on a smaller scale; the fifth is a boy drinking from a bottle. Behind him sits a boy in trousers gnawing a loaf. The last three are naked infants, one with a bottle, one with a loaf. All the royal children except the Prince of Wales have long ass's ears.
The bales and casks which support the leopard are spilling out their contents. On the ground, left and right, are two brawny Frenchmen, each inscribed 'Sans-culotte Français', not caricatured, but wearing sabots, a bonnet-rouge, and having the naked thighs of the sansculottes in English caricature. One (left) kneels in profile to the right, sawing through one of Pitt's stilts. The other (right) stands in profile to the left, hauling a rope which is attached to a bale supporting the leopard's platform. Two other sansculottes in the middle distance approach the sea, one carrying a bale, the other rolling a barrel. A boat waits to take the goods to a ship in full sail: 'Vaisseau de la République Française'. She is of a curious square shape, the head of Liberty symbolizing the French Republic forming the bows. March 1794
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1794
- Dimensions
-
Height: 480 millimetres
-
Width: 596 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VII, 1942)
The date is evidently before the marriage of the Prince of Wales. The Duke of York mourns military disasters, see BMSat 8496, &c. For the theme of the imbecile King and the domineering Minister cf. BMSat 8464, &c. For the (supposed) loss of commerce cf. BMSats 5724, 5726, 5859, &c. (Dutch and French prints on the American War.)
de Vinck, 4388. Blum, 599.
(Supplementary information)
The Committee of Public Safety bought 1,200 impressions of this print on 27 March 1794 (7 Germinal) from the sculptor Chaudet for 1,440 livres; this provides the evidence that he made the print, which is one of the group commissioned from David and others as a weapon of propaganda against the British. It was described as representing 'British power as a ridiculous structure on the point of collapse (l'Echafaudage prêt à crouler de la puissance brittanique), under the emblem of a tamed leopard, ridden by George's family and directed by Pitt'.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1989 May-Sep, BM, Shadow of the Guillotine: Britain and French Revolution, cat.153
1990 Jan-Mar, Manchester, Whitworth AG, Britain and French Revolution
1990 Jun-Sep, Vizille, Mus/Rev Francaise, Britain and French Revolution
2001 May-Sep BM, P&D, Paper Assets (no cat.)
- Associated names
-
Associated with: Prince Adolphus Frederick, Duke of Cambridge
-
Associated with: Princess Amelia
-
Associated with: Princess Augusta Sophia
-
Associated with: Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex
-
Associated with: Charlotte, Queen of George III
-
Associated with: Charlotte, Princess Royal (later Queen of Württemberg)
-
Associated with: Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent and Strathearn
-
Associated with: Princess Elizabeth
-
Associated with: Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and King of Hanover
-
Associated with: Frederica Charlotte Ulrica Catherine of Prussia, Duchess of York
-
Associated with: Frederick Augustus, Duke of York and Albany and Bishop of Osnabrück
-
Associated with: George III, King of the United Kingdom
-
Associated with: George IV, King of the United Kingdom
-
Associated with: William Pitt the Younger
-
Associated with: Princess Sophia
-
Associated with: William IV, King of the United Kingdom
- Acquisition date
- 1861
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1861,1012.157