Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

French taylor fitting John Bull with a "Jean de Bry"

Image not available
James Gillray
1756-1815

French taylor fitting John Bull with a "Jean de Bry"

London : Publish'd Novr. 18th, 1799, by H. Humphrey, 27 St. James's Street, [1799]
etching, hand colored
sheet: 346 x 262 mm, closely trimmed to image
Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987.
1986.307
Notes
By James Gillray.
Provenance

From the library of Gordon N. Ray.

Summary

Print shows an Englishman, fat and short-legged, and wearing a curled Brutus wig, looking at his reflection in a mirror crowned with a bonnet-rouge. The tailor, a simian monstrosity standing behind him, adjusts the sleeve of the coat. The coat (so styled after de Bry) has a high collar, is heavily padded, with full sleeves gathered at the shoulders, and is cut back into narrow tails. The boots have long pointed toes, the tops, with high tasselled peaks, projecting in front of the leg far above the knee. He stands on a large volume: 'Nouveaux Costumes'. The tailor is foppish, though wearing a bonnet-rouge with a long peak, long queue, ungartered stockings, and slippers. A tricolour measuring-tape is draped about him. He says: "A ha! - dere my Friend, I fit you to de Life! - dere is Libertè - no tight Aristocrat Sleeve, to keep from you do, vat you like! - aha! begar, dere be only want von leetel National Cockade to make look quite a la mode de Paris!!" John Bull answers: "Liberty! - quoth'a! - why sound I can't move my Arms at all! for all it looks woundy big! - ah! damn your French Alamodes, they give a man the same Liberty as if he was in the Stocks! - give me my Old Coat again, say I, if it is a little out at the Elbows." On the wall behind them is an oval frame containing 'Les Regles pour les Modes'.

Associated names
Humphrey, Hannah, active 1774-1817, publisher.
Ray, Gordon Norton, 1915-1986, former owner.
Classification
Department
Century prints