Light expelling darkness, - evaporation of stygian exhalations, or, The sun of the constitution, rising superior to the clouds of opposition / James Gillray des. et fect.

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James Gillray
1756-1815
Light expelling darkness, - evaporation of stygian exhalations, or, The sun of the constitution, rising superior to the clouds of opposition / James Gillray des. et fect.
hand colored etching
image: 34.7 x 44.7 cm; plate: 35.2 x 45.5 cm; sheet: 36 x 46.5 cm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 2859
Published: 
[London] : H. Humphrey, 1795.
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Summary: 

Pitt as, a Roman charioteer, wearing a laurel wreath, is seated in an ornate chariot drawn (left to right) by the British Lion and the White Horse of Hanover. He holds the reins, but scarcely controls the galloping pair. One foot rests on a shield bearing a fanged serpent, and wreathed with serpents, inscribed: 'Exit Python Republicanus'. Behind him is a book decorated with a lyre inscribed 'Magna Charta'. Ornate projections from the back of the chariot support the disk of the 'Sun of the Constitution': the Hebrew letters for Jehovah are surrounded by the words COMMONS . KING . LORDS; this is irradiated, the royal arms being etched partly on the sun, partly on its rays, and immediately behind Pitt. Beneath the horse and lion (right) are the heads and shoulders of (left to right) Sheridan, Fox, and Stanhope, their hair streaming behind them; each drops a dagger from his raised right hand. Sheridan and Fox have expressions of gloomy terror, Stanhope is melancholy but composed. In the abyss beneath the clouds are three small winged creatures: an owl (left) with the head of Lansdowne, two bats, one with the head of M. A. Taylor, the other (right) with that of Erskine. A second group flees upwards away from the thunderbolts of the Hanoverian horse; from the head of each falls a bonnet-rouge whose peak terminates in a (fool's) bell (cf. BMSat 9374). They are Lauderdale, with clasped hands, the Duke of Norfolk looking round apprehensively, above him the Duke of Grafton, and above again Lord Derby.

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