La belle assemblée

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James Gillray
1756-1815
La belle assemblée
[London] : Pub'd May 12th 1787 by H. Humphrey, New Bond Street, [1787]
etching, hand colored
image: 236 x 343 mm; plate mark: 249 x 350 mm; inlaid in sheet: 335 x 490 mm
Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987.
1986.223
Provenance: 
From the library of Gordon N. Ray.
Notes: 

By James Gillray.
At right of caption title: "Here, Love his golden shafts employs; here lights "His constant lamp; and waves his purple wings; "Reigns here and revels." Milton.'

Summary: 

Print shows five elderly women of fashion at an altar of Love in a temple whose walls are wreathed with roses. The fat Mrs. Hobart pours incense on the flames of the altar; in her right hand is an open book, 'Ninon'. Behind her Lady Archer leads a lamb garlanded with roses; she guides the animal with a riding-whip. Miss Jefferies walks beside Lady Archer holding a basket of flowers. On the left Lady Mount-Edgcumbe, aged and bent, holds a dove in each hand. On the right of the altar Lady Cecilia Johnston plays a lyre. The altar is decorated with rams' heads, a heart, arrows, and roses. A sculptured group of the three Graces stands in an alcove in the wall above the altar. In the background Mount Parnassus, on which sits a tiny figure of Apollo, playing a fiddle.

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