Les trois magots

Image not available
James Gillray
1756-1815
Les trois magots
etching, hand colored
image: 345 x 330 mm; plate: 352 x 349 mm; sheet: 360 x 359 mm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 2755
Published: 
[London] : Pubd. Novr. 1st 1791 by H. Humphrey, N. 18 Old Bond Street, [1791]
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Notes: 

By James Gillray.
Title from caption.
18 lines of verse below caption title: 'To whip a top, to knuckle down at taw ... The Magots, on that stock which Nature gives without a rival stand.'

Summary: 

Print shows Lord Barrymore and his two brothers as figurines on the shelf of a chimney-piece, along which the title is etched. Each stands on a circular pedestal inscribed: (left to right) 'A Hell-gate Blackguard', 'A Newgate Scrub', and 'A Cripplegate Monster', the three brothers being known as Newgate, Hellgate, and Cripplegate. In the centre Barrymore, as Scrub, is seated as in Act iii of Farquhar's play, when in conference with Archer: dressed in livery and wearing an apron, his hands on his knees. On the left Augustus Barry, stripped to the waist and wearing boxing-gloves with a high hat, stands in the attitude of a pugilist. On the right Henry Barry holds a toy whirligig. He wears the fashionable dress of the moment: high hat, long tight breeches reaching almost to the ankle, short wrinkled top-boots with enormous spurs. Over Barrymore's head is the lower part of a bust-portrait of the Prince of Wales in an oval frame.

Artist page: 
Classification: 
Department: