The King of Brobdingnag, and Gulliver

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James Gillray
1756-1815
The King of Brobdingnag, and Gulliver
[London] : Pubd June 26th 1803 by H Humphrey 27 St James's Street, [1803]
Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987.
1986.327
Published: 
[London] : Pubd. June 26th. 1803 by H. Humphrey 27 St James's Street, [1803]
Provenance: 
From the library of Gordon N. Ray.
Notes: 

By James Gillray.
Beneath Caption title: Vide. Swift's Gulliver: Voyage to Brobdingnag.
Exhibition label: King George III (1738-1820), portrayed here as the ruler of a race of giants in Jonathan Swift's (1667-1745) Gulliver's Travels, scrutinizes a tiny Napoleon (1769-1821) who stands on his palm, striking a characteristically belligerent pose. Gillray's caricatures of the French emperor were among his most popular prints. They would prove instrumental in fixing the enduring (if exaggerated) perception of Napoleon's stunted stature in the popular imagination. -- On view at the Morgan Library & Museum, Fall 2019.

Summary: 

Caricature of George III, half length in profile, a holding a tiny Napoleon on the palm of his right hand, and inspecting him through a spy-glass. He quotes a passage from Swift: "My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable "panegyric upon Yourself and Country, but from what I can "gather from your own relation & the answers I have with "much pains wringed & extorted from you, I cannot but con- "clude you to be one of the most pernicious, little - odious "-reptiles, that nature ever suffer'd to crawl upon the surface of the Earth."

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