James Gillray
1756-1815
Presages of the millenium, with the destruction of the faithful : as revealed to R. Brothers & attested by M.B. Hallhead, Esq. / Js. Gy. desn. et fect.
[London] : Pubd. June 4, 1795, by H. Humphrey n. 37 New Bond Street, [1795]
etching and aquatint, hand colored
image: 362 x 300 mm; plate mark: 376 x 327 mm; sheet: 384 x 333 mm
Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987.
1986.133
Notes
Below caption title: "And e'er the Last Days began, I looked, & behold, a White Horse, & his Name who sat upon it was Death: & Hell followed after him; & Power was given unto him to kill with the " Sword, & with Famine, & with Death; And I saw under him the Souls of the Multitude, those who were destroy'd for maintaing [sic] the word of Truth, & for the Testimony."
Exhibition label: A caricature of Prime Minister William Pitt inspired by support for the war with Revolutionary France on the part of King George III and the Tory ministry. A naked and skeletal Pitt rides forth as a harbringer of death and destruction astride the white horse of the royal house of Hanover. The leader of the Opposition, James Fox, and his fellow Whigs, who advocated for peace with France, are struck down at his heels as he tramples over the bodies of the "swinish multitude", a phrase notoriously applied to the general populace by political theorist Edmund Burke in his "Reflections on the Revolution in France" (1790). -- On view at the Morgan Library & Museum, Fall 2019.
Exhibition label: A caricature of Prime Minister William Pitt inspired by support for the war with Revolutionary France on the part of King George III and the Tory ministry. A naked and skeletal Pitt rides forth as a harbringer of death and destruction astride the white horse of the royal house of Hanover. The leader of the Opposition, James Fox, and his fellow Whigs, who advocated for peace with France, are struck down at his heels as he tramples over the bodies of the "swinish multitude", a phrase notoriously applied to the general populace by political theorist Edmund Burke in his "Reflections on the Revolution in France" (1790). -- On view at the Morgan Library & Museum, Fall 2019.
Provenance
From the library of Gordon N. Ray.
Summary
Print shows Pitt riding naked as Death on the white horse of Hanover, wielding a flaming sword and dragon, galloping over the prostrate bodies of pigs. Behind him and kissing his posterior sits a naked imp wearing the feathered coronet of the Prince of Wales, imps fly in his wake and in the foreground Pitt's opponents are kicked by the horse's hind leg, among them are: Fox, Sheridan, Wilberforce, Lansdowne, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Stanhope, and the Duke of Grafton.
Associated names
Humphrey, Hannah, active 1774-1817, publisher.
Ray, Gordon Norton, 1915-1986, former owner.
Ray, Gordon Norton, 1915-1986, former owner.
Artist
Classification
Department
Century prints
Catalog link