A sun setting in a fog, with the old Hanover hack descending

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James Gillray
1756-1815
A sun setting in a fog, with the old Hanover hack descending
etching with roulette, hand colored
image: 224 x 337 mm; plate mark: 250 x 351 mm; sheet: 245 x 343 mm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 2455
Published: 
[London] : Pubd. June 3d. 1783, by J. Williams, Strand No. 227, [1783]
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Notes: 

Printmaker from BM Satires.
Library's copy trimmed within plate mark.

Summary: 

Charles James Fox, brandishing a whip, is depicted riding the old White Horse of Hanover into a ravine, with the words "Aut Cromwell aut nihil ... ", a saddle bag labelled "enjoyments" before him, and a basket behind, labelled "hopes and expectations" which contains George III's head on a pike, a crown pierced by a sword, and a torn Magna Carta. Refers to Fox's alleged sympathies with French and Spanish interests.

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