Lady Hamilton Dancing
Another interesting event, this time on the other side of the pond. The Lewis Walpole Library at Yale University currently is currently showing an exhibition called Lady Hamilton Dancing. Blurb as follows:
In 1794 the dancing and Attitudes, or expressive postures, performed by Emma Hamilton (1761?-1815) were rendered in twelve neoclassical images engraved by Thomas Piroli after drawings by Frederick Rehberg. After the death of her husband Sir William Hamilton in 1803 and that of her lover Admiral Lord Nelson in 1805, Emma Hamilton and her Attitudes were the subject of a second, ‘enlarged’ edition of parodies by James Gillray in 1807 in which her person was dramatically inflated. Emma Hamilton Dancing displays these two editions beside each other for the first time.
Emma Hamilton by Friedrich Rehberg
Emma Hamilton by James Gillray
Personally I find Gillray's caricatures of Emma Hamilton particularly cruel, but cruelty was his stock in trade and there's no denying he had a genius for satirical ridicule, however unpleasant.
In 1794 the dancing and Attitudes, or expressive postures, performed by Emma Hamilton (1761?-1815) were rendered in twelve neoclassical images engraved by Thomas Piroli after drawings by Frederick Rehberg. After the death of her husband Sir William Hamilton in 1803 and that of her lover Admiral Lord Nelson in 1805, Emma Hamilton and her Attitudes were the subject of a second, ‘enlarged’ edition of parodies by James Gillray in 1807 in which her person was dramatically inflated. Emma Hamilton Dancing displays these two editions beside each other for the first time.
Emma Hamilton by Friedrich Rehberg
Emma Hamilton by James Gillray
Personally I find Gillray's caricatures of Emma Hamilton particularly cruel, but cruelty was his stock in trade and there's no denying he had a genius for satirical ridicule, however unpleasant.