File:Maniac-Ravings-Gillray.jpeg

Summary

Maniac-raving's-or-Little Boney in a strong fit / Js. Gillray inv. & fect.

SUMMARY: Cartoon showing Napoleon in a fury over relations between France and England.

MEDIUM: 1 print : etching, hand-colored.

CREATED/PUBLISHED: [London] : pubd. by Js. Gillray, 1803.

According to Wright & Evans, Historical and Descriptive Account of the Caricatures of James Gillray (1851, OCLC 59510372), p. 227, "A parody on Lord Whitworth's dispatch of the 14th of March, 1803, describing the violent scene which had occurred the day before at the Tuilleries. 'The exasperation and fury of Buonaparte,' says the Annual Register for the year just mentioned, 'broke out into ungovernable rage at his own Court, on his public day, and in the presence ofthe diplomatic body of Europe there assembled. Thus violating every principle of hospitality—of decorum—of politeness—and the privileges of Ambassadors—ever before held sacred. On the appearance of Lord Whitworth in the circle, he approached him with equal agitation and ferocity, proceeded to descant, in the bitterest terms, on the conduct of the English Government—summoned the Ministers of some of the Foreign Courts to be witnesses to this vituperative harangue—and concluded by expressions of the most angry and menacing hostility. The English Ambassador did not think it advisable to make any answer to this brutal and ungentlemanly attack, and it terminated by the First Consul retiring to his apartments, repeating his last phrases, till he had shut himself in; leaving nearly two hundred spectators of this wanton display of arrogant impropriety, in amazement and consternation.'"

Copyright status:

public domain

Source:

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g08795