James Gillray

Few modern-day satirists could match, or get away with, the acidic bile which gloriously gushed from the fluent pen of James Gillray. With caricatures often verging on the painfully grotesque; all came under the close scrutiny of this mind bent upon exploring unknown regions of taste. His images linger on in the memory far longer than words. No subject, no ruler was sacred.

Here Gillray's glare has been directed towards the "connoisseur" King George III examining a work by Samuel Cooper. Patronised by Cromwell and Charles II, Cooper was one of the leading miniaturists of the 17th Century. Praised by diarists Aubrey and Pepys, Cooper "the rare limner" achieved a European-wide reputation, Horace Walpole later comparing him to "Van Dyck in little". Cooper was commissioned by Oliver Cromwell, Lord Chief Protector of England (1599-1658) to paint the portrait miniature the connoisseur is seen examining. The realistic portrait, capturing the thinning Cromwell literally "warts and all", achieved great fame.

Cartoon of George III. Artist: James Gillray.

This engraving was produced shortly after the French Revolution when King George III had grown unpopular. Gillray implies that history could repeat itself and the king could suffer the same fate as Charles I. Gillray "quoted" A Connoisseur Examining a Cooper in his later work The King of Brobdingnag and Gulliver. This engraving shows the king in a similar pose "examining" a Lilliputian Napoleon through an eyeglass.