Morning preparation

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James Gillray
1756-1815
Morning preparation
etching and aquatint, hand colored
image: 315 x 240 mm; plate mark: 360 x 257 mm; sheet: 350 x 256 mm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 2507
Published: 
[London] : Pubd. Feby. 25th, 1785, by H. Humphrey, New Bond Street, [1785]
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Notes: 

Title from item.
A companion print to George 6791.
By James Gillray; a later recorded impression is dated Apr. 25, 1785.
Library's copy trimmed with loss of most of the etched imprint.

Summary: 

Fox, North, and Burke in a poverty-stricken room: North (left), seated in a low arm-chair, leans back yawning, arms above his head, legs stretched out. On the wall above his head hangs a broken pair of bellows, emblem of his Borean blast. Burke, (right), very thin, seated on a three-legged stool, is mending the breeches which he has taken off. Behind his head is a spider in the centre of a cobweb. Between and behind them stands Fox, in the attitude of an orator, right arm raised, rehearsing a speech and regarding himself in a cracked mirror (right) which reflects his anxious and gloomy expression. Above his head a dark lantern, emblem of a conspirator, hangs on the wall. Cf. British Museum online catalog.

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