The Collections

One of the uses of small telescopes, known as spyglasses, was to help those with poor sight. In satirical images, this could be used to emphasise the foolishness of those they lampooned. This image shows King George III, on the…

Technique includes etching.; Hand-coloured. A generic caricature of a sailor (midshipman) on half pay. He is polishing boots and shoes, sitting on his box. He looks rather fed up.

Plate No. 365. This 18th century caricature shows a sailor having a meal with a young woman. The scene seems innocent enough until the viewer notices that he is actually conducting a business transaction; presenting coins in return for her…

Print

Though the title of this print is missing, knowledge of other work by the amateur caricaturist Henry William Bunbury suggests this is an example of his mockery of social pretension. Each of the nine figures has a presumably much over…

See PAD4733, another copy, for a description of this etching which depicts a Greenwich and Chelsea Pensioner exchanging tales of past battles.

This contemporary caricature captures the grief felt by ordinary sailors when they heard the news of Nelson’s death. The sailor on the right is drinking to ‘The memory of the Immortal Hero of the Nile’ – one of the earliest…

Hand-coloured print. The British Admiral is celebrating the great victory with his men on board his flagship, the Vanguard. Nelson himself was slightly wounded to the head in the action, and a bandage is visible just below his hat. Nelson's…

This is the earliest of Gillray’s portrayals of Bonaparte as the symbolic personification of France. Here he is caricatured in a manner deriving from earlier 18th-century lampoons against the French, particularly by Hogarth, in being shown semi-naked and emaciated. Gillray…

Print of caricature "The Delegates in Counsel or Beggars on Horseback". French Revolutionary principles spread even to the Royal Navy. Published at the critical moment of the naval mutiny at Sheerness, led by Richard Parker, this print represents the events…