The Plum Pudding in Danger!

Gillray, c. 1800

Hello again, loyal readers and welcome to all you new visitors!

As some of you may have guessed from the title, today's post will be about my all-time favourite (I use that word a lot) cartoonist, James Gillray (1756-1815). The title comes from one of his best-known engravings, depicting a comically tall and thin William Pitt the Younger carving up a world globe (the titular pudding) with a comically short and tubby Napoleon. Pitt's half of the pudding-globe encompasses most of the Western Hemisphere while Napoleon takes Europe with Britain in the middle, its fate uncertain. The print was published in 1805, a light-hearted image but with the British people's very real fear of invasion at its heart. Gillray did not include any of the military figures of the day and there is no intrinsic theme of British supremacy in the print. Both leaders are presented as caricatures and Pitt is not presented as stronger or more powerful than Napoleon. Furthermore, the print bears the slogan: 'The great globe itself and all which it inherit is too small to satisfy such insatiable appetites.' 

Whatever the meaning of this print, Gillray produced many other excellent works besides. He was not overtly biased towards one side - everyone was fair game for his merciless pen and his pictures are instantly recognisable thanks to his distinctive style. Pitt is always portrayed as tall and thin with a long nose and queue of hair. Napoleon is always short and clad in a ridiculously ornate military uniform and Pitt's main rival, the Whig Charles James Fox is fat, seemingly sleepy and unshaven and sometimes clad in a French Revolutionary hat (Gillray did not support the Revolution).

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the blog and I will do another post soon!