Lady Hamilton Dancing

[anteros_lmc]

Another interesting event, this time on the other side of the pond. The Lewis Walpole Library at Yale University currently is currently showing an exhibition called Lady Hamilton Dancing. Blurb as follows:

In 1794 the dancing and Attitudes, or expressive postures, performed by Emma Hamilton (1761?-1815) were rendered in twelve neoclassical images engraved by Thomas Piroli after drawings by Frederick Rehberg. After the death of her husband Sir William Hamilton in 1803 and that of her lover Admiral Lord Nelson in 1805, Emma Hamilton and her Attitudes were the subject of a second, ‘enlarged’ edition of parodies by James Gillray in 1807 in which her person was dramatically inflated. Emma Hamilton Dancing displays these two editions beside each other for the first time.

Emma Hamilton by Friedrich Rehberg

Emma Hamilton by James Gillray

Personally I find Gillray's caricatures of Emma Hamilton particularly cruel, but cruelty was his stock in trade and there's no denying he had a genius for satirical ridicule, however unpleasant.

Comments

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Cruel indeed.

I keep meaning to ask: when I finally get round to scanning in all the Young Persons' resources I cadged from the Royal Dockyards, would you like copies?

There's a very difficult Nelson wordsearch in there.

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Cruel indeed.
I can't say I particularly like Gillray but there's no denying his work is iconic.

when I finally get round to scanning in all the Young Persons' resources I cadged from the Royal Dockyards, would you like copies?
Ooh yes that would be great! Thank you very much :) I'm PM you my e-mail address.

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Scanning everything now while I have a minute...

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Oh that's great thanks! Forgot to PM you my address, will do so now :)

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

Just did an image search on Gillray. What a horrible man. Imagine seeing the world that way. Such ugliness.

And he seems to be preoccupied with scatology.

Interesting to see the details of clothing and furniture though.

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

What a horrible man. Imagine seeing the world that way. Such ugliness.
You know, that's exactly what I think every time I see Gillray's work, Cruikshank's too. Unsurprisingly he came to a particularly unhappy end (alcoholism, attempted suicide and insanity). Very occasionally a spark of humanity seems to show through. There's something almost poignant about The Whore's Last Shift.

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

Yes-- I suppose. That one is not too bad. Although she would probably not want to be remembered that way, in her torn stockings and stupid hair.

[esmerelda-t.livejournal.com]

I'd call it misogyny rather than satire.

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

His work is undoubtedly misogynistic, and the same goes for the other "great" Georgian satirists Cruikshank and Rowlandson. Though at least some of Rowlandson's women look like they're having fun. As eglantine_br rightly pointed out, Gillray seems to have despised everyone. Judging by his work, his loathing knew no bounds.

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

Looking at a selection of his work, he seems to have despised everyone.

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Indeed, misogyny is only the half of it :/

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

That's a very good, and very worrying point. I'm curious to know how the exhibition displays these works and whether they address the very obvious misogyny of Gillray's works. I sincerely hope they do.