James Gillray

The revolutionaries who clustered around Juliette gradually became the opposition to Napoleon, and Juliette's total all-white look became a rallying symbol for the purity of revolutionary principles.

I'm glad you remind me to mention Gillray, the caricaturist, has a...

It's reproduced in Ann's book, the idea that Thérésia and Joséphine Rose are dancing without clothing, naked, uh, uh, for the entertainment of Barras.

In other words, they were weapons that the English were trying to counter.

Characteristic.

British characteristic James Gillray.

[laughs] You laughing at me, Nate?

Hey, man, it's so nice to have someone else struggle to pronounce words.

Exactly.

The time is nigh.

[laughs] So British caricaturist James Gillray was a wartime propagandist.

He was one of the most famous caricature artists of that time.

And I saw video of a, of a woman who had a, a banner which had Trump and Putin with, with dinner napkins and knives and forks sitting, sitting in front of a globe, a globe, which they were dividing between them.

And of course, that, that was, that, that was, that, uh, was reminiscent of the famous, um, Gillray cartoon in, in the early 19th century-

Yeah

... which had, had William Pitt, the British Prime Minister, and Napoleon doing the same thing.

And, and it's just this, this sort of the kind of back to the futurism of it, um, i- is astonishing because it's, it's so, it's so blatant and, and Trump, of course, goes along with it.

Yeah.

Trump himself, I'm sure he has no idea who Gillray is and, and probably little idea about whether Alaska was or wasn't once part of the Russian Empire.

But in a way, it doesn't matter because the idea that he has is that I've got a checkbook and, and, uh, you know, I...

Mm

... um, Gillray, Rowlandson, and Cruikshank, and those three made him out to, uh, to be tiny, but at the same time, dangerous.

It's interesting.

Mm.

Um, but look, you know, sometimes, you know, with cartoons and with images, there was a, there was a, a, a British, he, he predated, um, predated Thomas Nast by about 30 years.

But there was a guy named James Gillray who, you know, would create these molds, and he would hang these images in his shop, his printer shop window in London.

And, um, the thing about images is you didn't, you don't need to be literate to make fun of your leaders with images.

Yeah.

I mean, it is, it is an absolute joy to be, uh, into this stuff.

So, um, many of you will be familiar with things like Gillray's Fashionable Contrasts, where the Prince of Wales and his, uh, lover's feet are entangled on a bed very large.

Or perhaps Gillray's Gout, Hogarth's Gin Lane, um-

Wow

...

April is the New York Rare Book Fair, and May is First London.

And so my year has a lovely rhythm to it, um, and we choose these big set-piece events to introduce some of our, uh, areas of interest.

Um, and so for this year, we're gonna be reproducing a, uh, an 18th century print shop at Frieze Masters, um, where we're gonna have two windows, one dedicated to, to, to Gillray, one to Rowlandson, and a few little surprises apart for the people who visit.

Yeah, go on.

British caricaturist James Gilray repeatedly depicted him as tiny in his cartoons.

And actually, we've seen cartoons like that in recent years, haven't we? I mean, I've seen quite a few that should display in that way.

They

I don't really buy that one.

And I think, ultimately, it comes down to British propaganda, because we have a caricaturist during this period called James Gillray, who's an absolute genius.

Mm.

Folks can Google, uh, caricatures like The Plum Pudding in Danger, where you've got William Pitt the Elder, this sort of very emaciated British prime minister, um, sitting there across the table from a teeny-tiny Napoleon, and what Napoleon is doing is carving off a slice of this plum pudding labeled Europe.