The kettle hooting the porridge-pot

Image not available
James Gillray
1756-1815
The kettle hooting the porridge-pot
etching, hand colored
image: 134 x 194 mm; plate mark: 218 x 283 mm; sheet: 145 x 198 mm
Peel 2368
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Notes: 

Title etched below image.
Print appeared in: Woodward, G.M. Caricature magazine, or Hudibrastic mirror. London : Thomas Tegg, [1808?], v. 1.
Library's copy trimmed within plate mark.
A reduced copy of a print by Gillray published by J.P. Leatherhead, July 23, 1782, with the same title. Cf. No. 6013 in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires.

Summary: 

Print shows Shelburne as a kettle and Fox as a porridge-pot. Shelburne's body is in the form of a kettle, much blackened underneath; the handle, attached to his chest and shoulders, extends over his head. He points at Fox; his left foot is on the neck of a goose, which lies on its back on the ground. He is saying, "Oh do but look how black his Arse is!" Fox, with the head of a fox, his body a large circular pot, blackened underneath, is running away with an alarmed expression. In the centre of the design is a sign-post, its arm, pointing to the right, is terminated by a well-drawn hand holding a die in its fingers, but pointing with its fore-finger in the direction in which Fox is running. The arm of the post is inscribed "TO BROOKS'S"; from it hangs a rope with a noose at the end of it. On the post is hung up a placard inscribed "To be Lett- either as a Gibbet or Direction Post."

Artist page: 
Century: 
Classification: 
Department: