James Gillray’s A Voluptuary Under the Horrors of Digestion: the beginning of satirical and political caricatures

James Gillray’s A Voluptuary under the horrors of Digestion, 1792 (detail; full image below). Photograph: © The Trustees of the British Museum

A whale of a time …

The 30-year-old George, “Prince of Whales”is a greedy, ill-mannered slob in this merciless 1792 satirical print by one of the original masters of the form, James Gillray. Recovering from a meal, the future George IV picks his teeth as his belly is about to pop out from his waistcoat. Plenty of the jokes cross classes and centuries, such as a knife-and-fork coat of arms on the wall.

High snobriety …

Gillray was not your average penny-a-dozen caricaturist, though. Selling exclusively through Hannah Humphrey’s print shop, his clientele was unusual, including, as one London visitor noted, those of “high rank” and “good taste”.

The in crowd …

Cultural references include the portrait of the Venetian nobleman and arts patron Luigi Cornaro, another notorious libertine. Even the technique Gillray employed is an in-joke: a refined stipple engraving typically used for flattering portraits.

Glutton for punishment …

Perhaps the final irony is that the prince was among Gillray’s greatest admirers, purchasing huge quantities of his prints.

Photograph: © The Trustees of the British Museum

Included in I Object, British Museum, WC1, to 20 January 2019