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.

Following the fashion / Js. Gy. desn. et fect.

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James Gillray
1756-1815

Following the fashion / Js. Gy. desn. et fect.

[London] : Pubd. Decr. 9th. 1794, by H. Humphrey. No 37 New Bond Street, [1794]
etching, hand colored
image: 308 x 350 mm; trimmed sheet: 340 x 375 mm
Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987.
1986.527
Provenance

From the library of Gordon N. Ray.

Summary

Print shows two women, one tall and pretty, except for her grotesque slimness, the other short, fat, and ugly, wear burlesqued versions of the new fashion. Each walks, holding a glove in the (gloved) right hand, a nosegay in the left hand. Under each is a supplementary title: (left) 'St James's giving the Ton, a Soul without a Body'; (right) 'Cheapside aping the Mode, a Body without a Soul'. The former has a tiny waist, her breasts, lightly covered, project above it. Round her neck is a swathing connected with inflated puffs on her tight sleeves; her form is defined under the limp skirt. Another swathing seems to fasten a high straw scoop-like hat under her chin which shows her hair piled above her forehead. This is trimmed with an erect ostrich feather and a brush-aigrette. She wears sharply pointed slippers. The other lady is broad and squat and her feather, aigrette, and nosegay are much larger than those of her fashionable model.

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