TITLE PAGE
Picturing an Englishman: The Art of Sir Henry William Bunbury, 1770-1787
Submitted by Karen Marie Roche, to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in English, April 2008.
This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that
no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement.
I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own has been identified and that no material
has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other
University.
(signature)
1
ABSTRACT
This thesis offers an entirely new perspective on the art of Sir Henry William Bunbury (17501811) through a close reading of a selection of his prints published between 1770 and 1787. The
thesis suggests that Bunbury’s privileged social position enabled him to become an eloquent and
influential visual spokesman for both his class and his generation. This thesis argues that
Bunbury created iconic and influential images of ‘the Englishman’ in response to contemporary
ideas regarding the Frenchman, the man of fashion, the soldier and performer, the amateur actor
and the social and equestrian amateur. This thesis also suggests that Bunbury’s art raises
important questions regarding eighteenth century culture, including the nature of visual
entertainment, fashionable art and celebrity and the relationship between the amateur and the
professional artist. The evaluation of Bunbury’s little-known prints emphasises their visual and
cultural complexity and this contributes towards a new reading of the neglected historical period
in which he operated. Chapter one analyses the image of the foreign other and examines the
demand for images that reinforced a sense of national superiority. It also suggests that
Bunbury’s successful graphic format reflected the audience desire to consume images that
expressed an appetite for the amalgamation of fantasy with familiar experience. Chapter two
explores the idea of social disguise and transformation in the figure of the English Macaroni. An
examination of the ‘Promenade’ also suggests that Bunbury’s art capitalised on the audience’s
need to view multiple reflections of itself. Chapter three assesses the concentration on visual
entertainment as a reaction to impending conflict and concludes that Bunbury configured society
in terms of an audience united in the act of spectating. Chapter four analyses the indulgence of
all classes in visual escapism and dramatic role play and chapter five extends this discussion into
Bunbury’s creation of large scale social and equestrian panoramas. These images reveal his
artistic formulation of an inclusive and democratic society, presided over by the figure of the ideal
Englishman as a gentleman and a soldier. The conclusion of this thesis is that a study of
Bunbury’s neglected art offers a fresh and revealing insight into a period in the eighteenth century
that has been consistently sidelined by criticism.
2
LIST OF CONTENTS
Title Page
1
Abstract
2
List of Contents
3
List of Illustrations
4
Biography
14
Introduction
18
Chapter 1: The Exotic Outsider: The Frenchman and the Curious Viewer
53
Chapter 2: The Transformed Englishman: The Macaroni and the Man of Fashion
89
Chapter 3: The Performing Englishman: The Soldier and the Circus Man
124
Chapter 4: The Indulgent Englishman: The Noble Actor and Social Role-play
159
Chapter 5: The Sporting Englishman: The Social and Equestrian Ingénue
194
Conclusion
231
Appendix
Frances Burney’s meetings with Sir Henry William Bunbury, 1787
251
Bibliography
Primary Sources
The Prints published by Sir Henry William Bunbury, 1770-1811, 1811-1825
252
The Illustrated books published by Sir Henry William Bunbury, 1787-1801
285
Reference works with mention of Sir Henry William Bunbury’s work
286
Secondary Sources
Bibliographic and Reference works
288
3
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Reproduced by kind permission of the British Museum
(Except 87, National Portrait Gallery)
1.
Bunbury, A French Postilion, etching and dry point, c.1769-70.
2.
Bunbury, The Lemonade Seller, ‘T. J. Scratchley’, 8 January 1771, published by
Matthew Darly, 39 Strand (etching) (BM 4782).
3.
Bunbury, A View of the Place of Victories, ‘T. Scratchley’, 1 May 1772, published by
Matthew Darly, 39 Strand (etching) (BM 4919).
4.
Bunbury, The Delights of Islington, Charles Bretherton Junior, 30 April 1772, published
by James Bretherton, 134 New Bond Street (etching) (BM 4722).
5.
Bunbury, The Battle of the Cataplasm, James Bretherton, 3 February 1773, published
by James Bretherton, No. 134 New Bond Street (etching) (BM 5216).
6.
Bunbury, A Riding House, James Bretherton, 15 February 1780, published by James
Bretherton, (also hand coloured etching) (BM 5802).
7.
Bunbury, The First Interview of Werther and Charlotte, John Raphael Smith, 16
October 1782, published by John Raphael Smith, No. 83, opposite the Pantheon, Oxford Street
(etching and stipple, square and oval).
8.
Bunbury, The Village Ale-House, Joseph Grozier, 7 April 1787, published by William
Dickinson, Engraver and Print seller, No. 158 New Bond Street (etching and stipple).
4
9.
Bunbury, Peasants in the Vale of Llangollen, Joshua Kirby Baldrey, 2 November 1783,
published by William Dickinson, Engraver & Print seller, No. 158 New Bond Street (etching and
stipple).
10.
Bunbury, The Beautiful Stranger Poisoned by her Sister, Thomas Ryder, 31 March
1787, published by S. Watts, No. 50, opposite Old Round Court, the Strand (stipple and etching).
11.
Bunbury, Falstaff at Justice Shallow’s mustering his Recruits, William Nelson
Gardiner, 1 June 1792, published by Thomas Macklin’s Poet’s Gallery, Fleet Street, and (stipple).
12.
Bunbury, Morning employments, 1789, F. W. Tomkins (stipple).
13.
Bunbury, Misery, John Jones, 2 February 1788, published by John Jones, No. 75 Great
Portland Street, Portland Place (mixed media).
14.
Bunbury, The Water Sprite, 1795 (watercolour sketch).
15.
Rowlandson, La Place Victoire a Paris, November 1789, published by S. Alken, No. 2
Francis Street, East Bedford Square (hand coloured etching) (BM 9679).
16.
Bunbury, All Fours, John Raphael Smith, 14/17 March 1783, published by John Raphael
Smith, No. 83 Oxford Street (oval, hand coloured etching) (BM 6341).
17.
Gillray, A Barber’s Shop in Assize time, 9 January 1811, published by H. Humphrey,
St. James’s Street, London, The Last Work of the late James Gillray, Now First published 15 May
1818 by G. Humphrey, nephew and successor, to the late Mrs. Humphrey, 27 St. James’s Street,
reworking of 1785 print (hand coloured etching) (BM 11779).
5
18.
Bunbury, A French Postilion with a whip in one Hand, the other in Pocket, Birds,
Horses and a Barn Behind, (etching and dry-point) (BM 4743).
19.
Bunbury, Le Cabriolet, Matthew Darly, 4 February 1770 (etching) (BM 4633).
20.
Bunbury, French Peasant, Matthew Darly, 1 April 1770, published by Matthew Darly, 39
Strand, (etching) (BM 4677).
21.
Bunbury, La Cuisine de la Poste, Matthew Darly, 1 February 1771, published by
Matthew Darly, 39 Strand (etching) (BM 4918).
22.
Hogarth, Calais Gate, 6 March 1749, (engraving).
23.
Bunbury, View on the Pont Neuf at Paris, Matthew Darly, 1 October 1771, published by
Matthew Darly, 39 Strand, Where may be had all the Works of Mr. Bunbury (etching) (BM 4918).
24.
Bunbury, View on the Pont Neuf at Paris, Matthew Darly, 1 October 1771, 2nd state
reissue, John Harris, Sweetings Alley, Cornhill (etching) (4763).
25.
Bunbury, Courier Anglois, James Bretherton, 3 May 1774, published by James
Bretherton, 134 New Bond Street, (soft ground etching) (BM 4736).
26.
Bunbury, Courier Francois, James Bretherton, 3 May 1774, published by James
Bretherton, 134 New Bond Street (soft ground etching) (BM 4737).
27.
Bunbury, A Tour to Foreign Parts, James Bretherton, 11 March 1778, published by
James Bretherton (etching) (BM 4732). Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1777.
28.
Bunbury, An Englishman at Paris, 1767, James Bretherton, 23 Feb 1782, published by
6
James Bretherton (etching).
29.
James Caldwell after J. Collet, An Englishman at Paris, 1770 (mezzotint).
30.
Samuel Hieronymous Grimm, Hey day! Is this my daughter Anne! 14 June 1774,
published by Carrington Bowles (mezzotint) (BM 4538).
31.
Samuel Hieronymous Grimm, Well a Day! Is this my Son, Tom! 1773, published by
Carrington Bowles (coloured mezzotint) (BM 4536).
32.
Bunbury, Que je suis enchante de vous voir! c.1770, (etching and dry-point) (BM
4754).
33.
Topham, A Macaroni Print Shop, 1772, published by Matthew Darly (etching).
34.
Anonymous, Martial Macaroni 6 November 1771, published by Matthew Darly (etching)
(BM 4711).
35.
Bunbury, The St James’s Macaroni, James Bretherton, 29 March 1772, published by
James Bretherton, 134 New Bond Street (etching) (BM 4712).
36.
Bunbury, The Full-Blown Macaroni, James Bretherton, 29 March 1772, published by
James Bretherton, 134 New Bond Street (etching) (BM 4714).
37.
Bunbury, The Fish-Street Macaroni, James Bretherton, 29 March 1772, published by
James Bretherton, 134 New Bond Street (etching) (BM 4713).
7
38.
After Dighton, Mr. Deputy Dumpling and Family enjoying a Summer Afternoon, 1781,
published by Carrington Bowles (mezzotint) (BM 5955).
39.
Bunbury, The Inimitable Mr. Moss, James Bretherton, 15 May 1773, published by
James Bretherton, No. 134 New Bond Street (etching) (BM 4721).
40.
Bunbury, The Sleeping Macaroni, Dreaming for the Good of his Country, Matthew
Darly, 4 June 1772, published by Matthew Darly, 39 Strand (etching) (BM 4648).
41.
Bunbury, St James’s Park, James Wallis, 30 November 1783, published by J. Wallis,
No. 16 Ludgate Street and E. Hedges, No. 92 under the Royal Exchange, Cornhill, price 2s 6d
plain (etching and engraving) (BM 6344).
42.
Rowlandson, Vaux-Hall, 1785, F. Jukes & R. Pollard, 28 January 1785 (hand coloured
etching and aquatint) (BM 6853)
43.
Gillray, March to the Bank, 27 August 1787, published by S. W. Fores (etching).
44.
Hogarth, The Beggars Opera, 9 January 1733 (engraving).
45.
Hogarth, The Laughing Audience, 1733 (etching) (BM 1949).
46.
Rowlandson, Comedy Spectators, Tragedy Spectators, 1785, (hand coloured etching).
47.
Bunbury, Nancy, Thomas Watson, 11 (22) January 1780, Watson & Dickinson, No. 158
New Bond Street (stipple).
48.
‘I. M.’, Cock’s Heath, 28 October 1778, published by W. Humphrey (etching).
8
49.
Colley, The Comforts – or – Curse of a Military Life, 31 January 1783, published by
Elizabeth Darchery (etching) (BM 6170).
50.
Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe, 1776, Augustin Legrand, (engraving and
stipple).
51.
Bunbury, A Light Infantryman, F. D. Soiron, 20 July 1791, published by Thomas
Macklin, 39 Fleet Street (stipple and etching, also coloured).
52.
Bunbury, A Pioneer, F. D. Soiron, 6 November 1791, published by Thomas Macklin, 39
Fleet Street (stipple and etching).
53.
Anonymous, The Three Graces of Coxheath, 1779, published by Mary Darly (etching)
(BM 5600).
54.
Bunbury, A Visit to the Camp, Watson and Dickinson, 1 December 1779, published by
Watson & Dickinson, No. 158 New Bond Street (stipple).
55.
Bunbury, A Camp Scene, Charles Knight, 25 June 1784, published by Charles Knight,
Stafford Row, Pimlico (stipple) (BM 6727).
56.
Bunbury, Recruits, James Dickinson, 1 January 1780, published by Watson & Dickinson,
No. 158 New Bond Street – lettered No. 2 of series (etching).
57.
Bunbury, A Dancing Bear, Charles Knight, 25 June 1785, published by William
Dickinson, Engraver and Print seller, No. 158 New Bond Street and J. Jones, No. 63 Great
Portland Street (stipple and etching).
9
58.
Bunbury, A Band of Savoyards, Charles Knight, 20 September 1785, published by
William Dickinson, Engraver and Print seller, No. 158 New Bond Street (stipple and etching).
59.
Bunbury, A Dancing Bear, James Bretherton, 1 April 1774, published by James
Bretherton, 134 New Bond Street (etching and dry-point).
60.
Bunbury, To Wynnstay, c.1785.
61.
Bunbury, 3 Tickets to Wynnstay Theatre, 1786.
62.
Bunbury, Entrance Ticket to Wynnstay Theatre, Francesco Bartolozzi, 1785 (etching).
63.
William Dickinson after D. Gardiner Mrs. Bunbury and Mrs. Gwynne, 20 January 1780,
published by W. Dickinson and Watson, No. 158 New Bond Street (mezzotint).
64.
Bunbury, As You Like It, Charles Knight, 20 December 1788, published by William
Dickinson, Engraver, Bond Street (stipple).
65.
Bunbury, Derby Diligence, or, Lord Derby following Miss Farren, John Raphael
Smith, 20 July 1781, published by John Raphael Smith, No. 83 Oxford Street, nearly opposite the
Pantheon (hand coloured etching and aquatint) (BM 5901).
66.
Bunbury, Sir Gregory Gigg, John Raphael Smith, 23 July 1782, published by John
Raphael Smith, No. 83, opposite the Pantheon, Oxford Street (etching and stipple) (BM 6146).
67.
Anonymous, Hints to Bad Horsemen, 1 October 1789, printed for J. Smith, No. 35
Cheapside, (hand coloured etching) (BM 7610).
10
68.
Bunbury, Symptoms of Restiveness, 10 May 1781, Watson and Dickinson, No. 158
New Bond Street (etching) (BM 5914).
69.
Bunbury, Symptoms of Starting, 10 May 1781, Watson and Dickinson, No. 158 New
Bond Street (etching) (BM 5915).
70.
Bunbury, Symptoms of Kicking, 10 May 1781, Watson and Dickinson, No. 158 New
Bond Street (etching) (BM 5916).
71.
Bunbury, Symptoms of Tumbling, 10 May 1781, Watson and Dickinson, No. 158 New
Bond Street (etching) (BM 5917).
72.
Bunbury, The Inflexible Porter, John Raphael Smith, 24 March 1783, published by John
Raphael Smith, No. 83 Oxford Street, and S. W. Fores, 41 Piccadilly (stipple) (BM 6343/A).
73.
Bunbury, Front, Side View and Back Front of a Modern Fine Gentleman, John
Raphael Smith, 24 March 1783, published by John Raphael Smith, No. 83 opposite the
Pantheon, Oxford Street (BM 6342).
74.
Gillray, Cockney Sportsmen (Finding a Hare), 12 November 1800, published by H.
Humphrey, 27 St. James’s Street (hand coloured etching) (BM 9599).
75.
Bunbury, City Foulers – Mark! John Jones, 1 September 1785, No. 63 Great Portland
Street, Marylebone (stipple) (BM 6883).
11
76.
Bunbury, The Gardens of Carleton House, William Dickinson, 10 May 1785, published
by William Dickinson, No. 158 New Bond Street and William Austin, Drawing Master, St. James’s
Street (stipple and etching).
77.
Bunbury, Hyde Park, James Bretherton, 8 February 1781, published by James
Bretherton, New Bond Street (etching) (BM 5925-5927).
78.
Bunbury, A City Hunt, James Bretherton, 8 February 1781, published by James
Bretherton, New Bond Street (etching).
79.
Gillray, Hounds in Full Cry! 8 April 1800, published by H. Humphrey, 27 St. James’s
Street (hand coloured etching) (BM 9590).
80.
Rowlandson, A City Hunt c.1799, (hand coloured etching).
81.
Bunbury, Richmond Hill, William Dickinson, 1 March 1782, published by William
Dickinson, Engraver and Print seller, No. 158 New Bond Street (stipple etching) (BM 6143).
Exhibited at the Royal Academy, no. 536.
82.
Hogarth, Four Stages of Cruelty, Plate 2, 1 February 1751, London.
83.
Rowlandson, A Historian animating the mind of a young painter 1784 (etching) (BM
6724).
84.
Rowlandson, Richmond Hill, 1799 (coloured etching).
85.
Bunbury, A Long Minuet as danced at Bath, William Dickinson, 25 June 1787,
published by William Dickinson, Engraver, Bond Street (stipple) (BM 7229).
12
86.
Hogarth, Analysis of Beauty, Plate 2, 7 March 1753 (etching and engraving) (BM 3226).
87.
Thomas Ryder after Thomas Lawrence, Henry William Bunbury, 21 April 1789 (stipple
etching) (NPG 15022).
88.
Bunbury, Propagation of a Lie, William Dickinson, 29 December 1787 (etching) (BM
7230).
89.
Gillray, An Installation Supper, 4 June 1788, published by S. W. Fores, No. 3 Piccadilly
(hand coloured etching) (BM 7330).
90.
Rowlandson, The Propagation of a Truth, 1 April 1790 (etching) (BM 4782).
13
BIOGRAPHY
Sir Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811)
1750
Henry William Bunbury born (25 July) Charles (1740-1821) Susannah (b. 1745),
Annabella (b. 1746) William (1748)
Lives at the Manor House, Mildenhall until 1764
1755
Attends Westminster School
Friendship with Charles Horneck (brother of Catherine and Mary) at school
1762
Mother Eleanor Bunbury dies
Eldest brother Thomas ‘Charles’ Bunbury marries Lady Sarah Lennox (1745-1826)
1764
Sir Joshua Reynolds’s portrait of Bunbury as Master Bunbury
Father Reverend Sir William Bunbury (5th Baronet) dies, leaving Charles as his heir
Charles and Lady Sarah move to Barton Hall and Bunbury lives there until 1771
1765
Bunbury’s participation in amateur theatricals mentioned in Lady Sarah’s letters
1766
Bunbury’s first etchings, Boy riding on a pig, Mastigeus
1767
Visit to France and Italy
1768
30 January, admitted to Cambridge
Lady Sarah elopes with her cousin Lord George Gordon and their daughter Louisa
Bunbury (1767-1785) is born in London
1769
Bunbury in Florence and studies drawing in Rome
French sketches made
1770
Thomas Patch’s sketch of Bunbury as Mr. Bunberry made in Florence, also his painting
of Bunbury and friends
Exhibits La Cuisine de la Poste at the Royal Academy
Le Cabriolet published and makes etching of Goldsmith (published as a frontispiece in
Goldsmith’s The Haunch of Venison (1776)
1771
1 February, readmitted to Cambridge, but leaves a few months later
French sketches published by Darly, also View on the Pont Neuf
14
1771
August, marries Catherine Horneck (1754-1799) and they live near Barton Hall from 1778
Goldsmith, Garrick and Reynolds’ visit Barton
Sir Joshua Reynolds paints Catherine and Mary (Mary marries Col. Gwynne and they live
frugally at Mildenhall until he is made an Equerry to George III in 1787)
1772
First son Charles John is born (1772-1798)
German and French sketches published and also Macaroni prints
1773
Illustrations to Tristram Shandy also The Christmas Academics and illustration to
Scarron’s Roman Comique
Catherine and Bunbury attend the rehearsals for She Stoops to Conquer with Goldsmith
Visit James Beattie and Edmund Burke (Catherine’s guardian)
1774
French prints published, including Courier Anglois and Courier Francois
David Garrick’s poem to Bunbury (5 October)
Also Garrick’s poem The Old Painter’s Soliloquy upon seeing Mr. Bunbury’s Drawings
1776
Horace Walpole begins collecting Bunbury’s prints (13 July letter to Lady Ossory)
The divorce of Lady Sarah and Charles is finalised
1771
Translation of Bunbury’s designs in Memorandum of … a Little Tour
1778
Sister, Anabella divorces her husband Sir Patrick Blake and marries George Boscawen
Moves from Barton to Whitehall (until 1792), where second son, Henry Edward (godchild
of Sir Joshua Reynolds) is born (1778-1860)
Joins the West Suffolk Militia as a Lieutenant and is stationed at Coxheath, begins
drawing military subjects
Johnson gives the Bunburys their family Bible
1779
Assumes the lucrative position of Comptroller of Army Accounts
Publishes Coxheath Ho and A Visit to the Camp
1780
Sir Joshua Reynolds’ portrait of Charles John as Master Bunbury
Publishes Recruits and Nancy, illustration to Sheridan’s play The Camp
Made an Honorary Exhibitor at the Royal Academy (1780-1808) and exhibits Recruits
and A Camp Toilet
15
1780
Horace Walpole’s praise of him in his Anecdotes of Painting (October)
1781
Presents the drawing of Richmond Hill to Horace Walpole
The large-scale A City Hunt (dedicated to the Prince of Wales) and Hyde Park published
Publishes portrait of Charles James Fox and 4 illustrations entitled Hints to Bad
Horsemen
1782
Publishes an Englishman at Paris, 1767
1784
Publishes The Deserter and A Camp Scene
1785
Exhibits 8 illustrations to The Arabian Nights at the Royal Academy
Dedicates The Gardens of Carleton House to the Prince of Wales
Participates in a busy season at Wynnstay Theatre
Louisa Bunbury dies
1787
Made Equerry to the Duke of York (Colonel Gwynne made Equerry to George III)
Meets Frances Burney at Windsor
Most famous strip designs A Long Minuet as Danced at Bath and The Propagation of a
Lie published
An Academy for Grown Horsemen published, (11 Dickinson engravings) 1 September
1788
Misery published
Made a full Lieutenant in the West Suffolk Militia
2nd edition of The Academy published, also in Dublin
1789
Ryder’s engraving of Lawrence’s portrait of Bunbury published
Visits Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill (20 August)
1790
Illustrations to Arabian Nights published, also The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green
1791
The Annals of Horsemanship published (16 illustrations)
Military portraits set published
Proposes Catherine and himself as Walpole’s tenants at Little Strawberry Hill, but is
disappointed (letter from Walpole, 17 March)
1792
2nd edition of the Annals of Horsemanship, also in Dublin
Shakespeare etchings published for Thomas Macklin
16
1792
Financial difficulties cause the Duke and Duchess of York to move from London to
Weybridge and the Bunburys follow from Whitehall (until 1799)
1793
Shakespeare Falstaff etchings
1794
Angelica’s Ladies Library published with illustrations by Kauffmann and Bunbury
(dedicated to the Queen)
Bunbury at a military camp at Brighton with his Regiment (November)
1795
Shakespeare illustrations
Plans a book entitled Familiar Letters or Morcells for Merry and Melancholy Mortals
Bunbury’s A Long Minuet inspires an entertainment The Lord Mayor’s Day, or a Flight
from Lapland at the Theatre Royal (9 November)
1796
3rd edition of The Annals
1798
The Academy and The Annals both reissued with illustrations by Rowlandson
Eldest son dies at the Cape of Good Hope (May) leaving a wife but no children
1799
Rowlandson reworks several of Bunbury’s designs
Catherine dies (8 July) at Weybridge, Bunbury remains there untilc.1804
Bunbury retires from the Militia in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel
1801
Tales of the Devil, from the Original Gibberish by Professor Lumpwitz (comic verse with 5
cartoon illustrations) published by George Ingram in Bury St. Edmunds and Tales of
Terror (20 cautionary Gothic tales, printed in red by Bulmer & Co. sold by J. Bell)
published
1803
Receives letter from Benjamin West bemoaning the fact that he has not exhibited at the
Royal Academy for many years
1804
Savoy and Tuscany published
Bunbury moves from Suffolk to Keswick
1806
Writes letter to Bannister regarding his attempts at oil painting
Exhibits at the Royal Academy
1807
Rowlandson’s reworking of A Calf’s Pluck and other Bunbury designs
Second son marries Louisa Emilia Fox
17
1808
The Annals of Horsemanship (4 May) and The Academy reissued both with Rowlandson
illustrations (11 June)
1809
Series of 6 coloured illustrations of sailors etched by George Shepheard from 1796
reissued
1811
A Barber’s Shop in Assize Time reworked by Gillray, Patience in a Punt and Anglers of
1611 reworked by Rowlandson
Dies (7 May) leaving an estate worth only £2000 and is buried in Keswick
Obituary published in the Gentleman’s Magazine
Lumps of Pudding published
1812
The Academy reprinted with The Annals
1825
The Academy and The Annals reissued by Rudolph Ackermann
1850
The Academy used as the basis for Rev Richard Cobbold’s book Geoffrey Gambado: or,
A Simple Remedy for Hypochondriacism and Melancholy Splenetive Humours, By a
Humanist Physician (published privately)
1905
The Academy and The Annals reissued by Methuen
1929
100 copies of a The Academy (facsimile) issued
18
INTRODUCTION
The context of English graphic satire
English graphic satire in the seventeenth century was anything but humorous and entertaining
and was instead characterised by its lack of visual spontaneity and what has been called its
‘earnest and humourless’ nature.1 Artists took their inspiration from the complex and densely
packed intellectual imagery of emblem books rather than from contemporary or ‘real’ life and
prints were characterised by an emphasis on verbal communication in the form of moral and
political teaching.2 This resulted in the creation of ponderous images whose purpose was to
inflame the viewer’s opinion rather than to amuse or entertain. Prints possessed a strong antiCatholic and anti-French bias and in the absence of a tradition of personal caricature, figures
were satirised through the strange situations in which they were depicted, rather than by the
distortion of their physical features.3 Dutch engravers dominated the production of satirical prints
in England and as the creators of mass-produced images, these artists ‘express[ed] their wit in
manufacture’.4 They were responsible for the creation of a series of images to reflect the defining
moments of European financial crisis in 1720, including the highly politicised South Sea Bubble
incident in England.5 These early satires were seized upon by the Opposition party and
subsequently used as an effective means of delivering anti-ministerial and especially anti-Walpole
propaganda. Although the majority of prints were compositionally complex and targeted a
sophisticated and visually literate audience, they were augmented with more readily accessible
single sheet images aimed at a wider and less discriminating audience.
1
R. W. Buss, English Graphic Satire and its relation to different styles of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving (London,
1874), p.42.
2
These early examples included numerous captions and numbered figures to aid elucidation by the viewer.
3
Although few prints at this time were signed, the Dutch artists Wenceslas Hollar and Francis Barlow produced images
that catalogued elements the defining themes of contemporary English social life, while the first satirical English print
produced by an English preacher, Samuel Ward, was entitled The Double Deliverance (1621).
4
Romeyn de Hooghe (1646-1708) produced the images that addressed elements of English life most effectively. He was
a propagandist, paid by William of Orange to create incisive graphic attacks on James II prior to William’s replacement of
him on the English throne.
5
‘Their very minds are mechanics.’ The un-attributed article is dated c.1709/10. See George Paston, Social Caricature in
the Eighteenth Century (London: Methuen, 1905), 1.
The popular series of prints entitled The Great Mirror of Folly was copied and subtly altered by English artists in order to
reflect the South Sea Bubble scandal which saw the publication of one of William Hogarth’s first prints entitled The South
Sea Scheme (1720).
19
As a reaction against the rigid and formulaic conventions of early eighteenth century art, the
period between 1730 and 1740 saw a gradual increase in the number and compositional vitality
of English satirical images. To counteract the domination of the English print market by what was
considered to be a low and imported form of art, William Hogarth (1697-1764) began to develop a
unique and indigenous form of contemporary visual language. He created ‘a more new way of
proceeding viz. Painting and Engraving Modern Moral subjects, a field unbroke up in any country
or in any age.’ The novelty of this approach ensured that his work reached a large number of
different audience groups simultaneously.6 Hogarth consciously manipulated the form and
content of his art in order to receive ‘small sums from many by means of Prints which I could
engrave from my Picture myself I could secure my Property to my self.’ 7 By concentrating on
contemporary English life and by consciously choosing the print as his medium of expression,
Hogarth established the English satirical print as a flexible, universally ‘legible’ and highly
marketable commodity.8
Hogarth’s aggressive championing of a selective form of Englishness was reflected in his
fascination with the complex co-ordinates of everyday life. He viewed himself as an ‘arranger’ of
things and a theatrical director of realistic characters: ‘my picture is my stage, and men and
women my actors who are by means of certain Actions and Expressions to exhibit a dumb
shew.’9 Hogarth’s creation and manipulation of a silent gallery of character types marked a subtle
departure in both the form and the function of English graphic satire and heralded the important
blurring of distinctions between high and low forms of art.10 His ‘way of designing’ incorporated
both the ‘comic and the moral’ elements of life and the resultant visual images were didactic in
purpose and characterised by an unmistakable moral charge. Hogarth was vigorously
6
Ronald Paulson (ed.), William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997),
215. See also Mary Dorothy George, Hogarth to Cruikshank: Social Change in Graphic Satire (London: The Penguin
Press, 1967).
7
William Hogarth, Analysis of Beauty, ed. Ronald Paulson (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1997), 215.
8
In establishing personal ownership of his images, Hogarth became the first English example of the Dutch ‘mechanic’ and
this culminated in the Engraver’s Copyright (or ‘Hogarth’s’) Act of 1735. This ensured that engravers’ work could not be
reproduced without their permission for a period of 11 years.
9
Mary Dorothy George, Hogarth to Cruikshank: Social Change in Graphic Satire (London: The Penguin Press, 1967), 21.
10
Hogarth’s prints drew ‘[their] imagery both from classic history painting and popular lore and [this corresponded] to the
social range and fluidity of the audience and moved freely between levels of allusion and signification.’ Diana Donald, the
Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), 2.
20
contemporary in his approach and included references in his prints to fashionable individuals and
familiar objects that were immediately recognisable to his audience. He produced a series of
narrative sequences known as Progresses and these in particular provided the viewer with an
experience in which fascination was combined with entertainment and also a form of titillation.
However, the inherent moral purpose of these prints reinforced an essentially bleak view of life in
which each individual was ultimately enclosed within a private world where an awareness of
mortality and time passing was all-pervasive. These images proved instantly popular with a
socially diffuse audience that responded instinctively to their visual immediacy and strong
element of teaching. Henry Fielding (1707-1754) endorsed both the form and the function of his
friend Hogarth’s innovative and persuasive art and also emphasised its artisan and practical
nature. In doing so, he associated mass-produced art with didactic and moral purpose:
I esteem the ingenious Mr Hogarth as one of the most useful satirists any age has
produced […] I almost dare affirm that these two works of his which he calls the Rake’s,
and the Harlot’s Progress are calculated more to serve the cause of virtue, and the
Preservation of Mankind, than all the Follies of Morality which have ever been written. 11
Although Hogarth was consistently labelled by his contemporaries as a caricaturist rather than a
‘serious’ painter, he made repeated efforts to distinguish his realistic English art in relation to what
he considered to be the imported and ‘immoral’ practice of caricature.12 He set out to
demonstrate the differences in his print Characters and Caricaturas (1743) and refuted the fact
that the caricature artist was able to ‘improve’ upon nature by the subtle alteration and
exaggeration of represented physical features. Caricature was also viewed as a medium of
‘revelation’ that was capable of exposing the coexistence of beauty and deformity in the same
body. In this way it became a mirror held up to reflect not the real, but the hyper-real.
The Rake’s Progress (1735) and The Harlot’s Progress (1732). George, Hogarth to Cruikshank: Social Change in
Graphic Satire, 21. See Fielding’s Preface to his novel Joseph Andrews (1742) in which he discusses Hogarth as a
‘comic history painter’ and differentiates between caricature and character.
12
The art of caricature was developed, if not invented, at the end of the sixteenth century in Italy by the brothers Annibale
and Agostino Caracci.
11
21
Is it not the caricaturist’s task exactly the same as the classical artist’s? Both see the
lasting truth beneath the surface of mere outward appearance. Both try to help nature
accomplish its plan. The one may strive to visualise the perfect form and to realise it in
his work, the other to grasp the perfect deformity, and thus reveal the very essence of a
personality. A good caricature, like every work of art, is more true to life than reality itself.
In England, caricature was initially perceived as a subversive and aggressive act of war against
the traditions of a naturalised and intensely verbal form of graphic satire. However, despite (or
precisely because) of its resolutely foreign nature it was quickly assimilated into the English visual
vernacular and became a highly usable and effective weapon against both personal and political
enemies.13 The artist Arthur Pond capitalised on the contemporary vogue for caricature prints
with a series of etchings after the caricature portraits by Pier Leone Ghezzi, issued between 1736
and 1742.14 As a direct consequence of the popularity of Ghezzi and his imitators, English
visitors to Rome during the 1750s and 1760s were seized with the desire not only to have their
likenesses taken by the professional artist Pompeo Batoni, but also to be sketched by a
fashionable caricaturist. This dualistic impulse reflected the conflation of the light-hearted and the
serious in the form of the Janus-faced Englishman, and also highlighted the symbolism attached
to the physical and social placement of art. The arrival in Italy of the English artist Thomas Patch
in 1755 coincided with the growing demand for caricatures and he constructed a highly
successful business around the production of large-scale canvasses of English Grand Tourist
groups in character profile.15 The artistic licence employed by Patch in these detailed paintings
both surprised and delighted his upper class clients and underlined the precarious nature of the
relationship between the copy and the original image:
‘Young man, you come from Italy. They tell me of a new invention there called caricatura drawing. Can you find me
somebody that will make me a caricature of Lady Masham, describing her covered with sores and ulcers, that I may send
it to the Queen to give her a slight idea of her favourite?’ Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough to Bubb Dodington. An
undocumented letter, quoted in Paston, Social Caricature, 2.
14
Arthur Pond (1705-1758); Pier Leone Ghezzi (1674-1755).
15
Pompeo Batoni (1708-1787); Thomas Patch (1725-1782). Sir Horace Mann noted of Patch: ‘He has an excellent turn
for caricature, in which the young English often, employ him to make conversation pieces of any member, for which they
draw lots. Undocumented letter, quoted in Anne Gould (ed.), with an Introduction and Commentary by William Feaver,
Masters of Caricature: From Hogarth and Gillray to Scarfe and Levine (London: George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd.,
1981), 41.
13
22
Patch has by this time encanvass’d you, and I dare say has made us all as ridiculous as
his genius will admit of. After all, ‘tis absurd for a man to sit seriously down to be laughed
at, in a copy of his figure, who at the same time wou’d cut ones throat for laughing at the
original.16
The witty and entertaining art of caricature was assimilated into the more serious didactic tradition
of English graphic satire and within a generation, the complex and hybrid genre had been
blended into an effortlessly representative form of visual expression. The ambivalent and
grotesque nature of caricature appealed to the quintessentially English love of mockery and
preaching, while the incorporation of an innate artistic licence was highly compatible with the
Englishman’s perception of an essential form of ‘liberty’ and individuality or self-image. While
purely satirical art presupposed the existence of a rigid framework of reference, caricature was
more flexible and involved a surrender of the freedom to dictate and control the terms of its
representation. The acknowledged hybrid and protean nature of caricature as an art form
therefore enabled it to cater for a number of different audience groups simultaneously. 17
The fashion for caricature permeated every rank of society and the print became the chosen
medium of its expression. Images were minutely tailored to suit the taste and financial resources
of different social classes and the range of prints extended to include cheap single sheet
illustrations and limited edition series, priced from as little as 1d up to several shillings for a plain
or hand coloured copy. During the 1760s there was an abrupt shift in the pattern of graphic satire
and English printmaking underwent an interesting phase of innovation, re-definition and
consolidation. This period was marked by the rise of an entirely new breed of amateur artist and
their production of small-scale caricatures and humorous mezzotints or ‘Postures’. 18 The majority
of these amateur practitioners possessed no formal artistic training and many emerged directly
from the most privileged ranks of society. The distinction made between the financially
independent ‘amateur’ and the waged ‘professional’ was based almost entirely upon social
16
Undocumented letter, quoted in Paston, Social Caricature, 2.
The diplomatic Thomas Patch did not venture to caricature anyone ‘without his consent, and a full liberty to exercise his
talents.’ Undocumented letter, quoted in Gould, Masters of Caricature: From Hogarth and Gillray to Scarfe and Levine,
41.
17
23
considerations. This opinion later became attached to the definition of a journeyman or craftsman
who served an artistic apprenticeship and who was formally ‘qualified’ in the arts of drawing and
painting. While the socially privileged amateurs varied greatly in their skill and approach to the
production of satiric and humorous art, they compensated for their lack of formal knowledge with
the sheer enthusiasm and inventive force of their drawings.
The entry of the upper classes into the commercial arena of print production was encouraged by
a unique set of social and political circumstances and the appearance of the socially privileged
amateur artist, General George (later Marquess) Townshend (1724-1807) symbolised an
acceptance of the art of caricature as a gentlemanly hobby. 19 Townshend established and then
capitalised upon the fashion for incisive graphic humour by producing images that provided
intellectually stimulating entertainment for a varied social audience. 20 These were rendered more
commercially attractive by the use of innovatory formats including, the small-scale card, the
transparency and the ‘droll’. While Townshend’s motives for publishing political prints in the
1750s were essentially personal, his relationship with the enterprising print sellers Mary and
Matthew Darly also marked a new phase in the development of English graphic art.21
From its status as an elaborate and elitist in-joke, the souvenir caricature portrait was
subsequently transformed into a highly marketable commercial commodity. Townshend was a
consummate self-publicist and he manipulated his personal notoriety to produce a uniquely quirky
brand of contemporary political satire. To these ends, he adorned ‘the shutters, walls and
napkins of every tavern in Pall Mall with caricatures of the Duke [of Cumberland], and Sir George
18
These were sold for 1/- plain or 2/- coloured. See The British Museum Online Catalogue and A Catalogue of
Eighteenth Century British Mezzotint Satires in North American Collections at www.lclark.edu/
19
George, Marquess of Townshend (1724-1807) had a lengthy and successful career in the Army, during which time he
modified the militia and passed a number of military reforms. He was known for his mercurial temperament and drew
caricatures of his friends and his enemies (in particular his erstwhile boss, the Duke of Cumberland) all the way through
his life.
20
Diana Donald, ‘Calumny and Caricatura: Eighteenth Century Political Prints and the Case of George Townshend’, Art
History, Vol. 6, No. 1 (March 1983).
21
Mary Darly (fl. 1756-1779) and her husband Matthew (fl. 1741-1778) owned print shops in Fleet Street and the Strand.
Matthew designed furnishing accessories and also engraved Thomas Chippendale’s designs for The Gentleman and
Cabinet-Makers Director (plates dated 1753, 1754, and plates in the 2nd edition in 1762. Mary advertised herself as an
‘etcher and publisher’ in the newspapers and also managed a shop at ‘The Acorn, Ryders Court (Cranbourne Alley),
Leicester Fields. While producing their own prints, they also engraved the work of others and offered drawing and etching
24
Lyttelton, the Duke of Newcastle and Fox’. Townshend’s images were characterised by their
effective blending of caricature with the emblematic devices of earlier satirical prints. His early
acts of graffiti were subsequently honed into minutely targeted political prints which, despite their
technical clumsiness, received a rapturous reception from the contemporary viewing public.
Horace Walpole was moved to shed tears of laughter after witnessing Townshend’s notorious
graphic production, The Recruiting Sergeant (1757):
I laughed till I cried. This print [The Recruiting Sergeant] has so diverted the Town that
today a Pamphlet against George Townshend was produced called ‘The Art of Political
Lying’. His genius for likeness is astonishing.22
The overwhelmingly positive public reaction to these prints was seemingly out of all proportion
with their artistic merit. The popularity of Townshend’s images lay in the fact that they were
entertaining extensions of his own pleasingly irreverent, witty personality, but the success of his
prints was also due to his clever inclusion of recognisable public figures. The alliance of verbal
and visual methods of artistic communication therefore converted the art of ‘caricaturing’ from a
personal, private amusement into an intensely self-aware and highly communal public endeavour.
From the 1760s onwards the activity of socially privileged amateurs like Townshend contributed
to a corresponding rise in the production and popularity of both the caricature genre and the print
format. The print sellers Mary and Matthew Darly were the first to capitalise on the vogue for
caricatures and they advertised directly for designs from non-professionals. This appeal
represented the first step towards the consummate commercial marketing of caricature art as a
popular and genteel hobby:
Ladies and gentlemen sending their designs may have them carefully etched and printed
for their own private amusement, or if for publication, shall have every return and
lessons to members of the upper classes. See Constance Simon, English Furniture Designers of the Eighteenth Century
(A. H. Bullen, 1905), 39-51.
22
Horace Walpole to a friend. An undocumented letter, quoted in Gould, Masters of Caricature: From Hogarth and Gillray
to Scarfe and Levine, 43.
25
acknowledgement for any comic design. Descriptions for hints in writing …shall have
due Honour shown them and be Immediately Drawn and Executed. 23
The production of prints by well-connected amateurs increased significantly following the
establishment of a newly found equilibrium in monarchical and party politics around 1766, and the
Darly’s commercial focus then shifted from the manufacture of political caricatures to prints with a
predominantly social bias.24 Amateur artists were ideally placed to provide a diverting
commentary and titillating insider view of society and the Darlys brokered a lucrative and mutually
satisfactory deal with them on precisely this basis. The print seller was the material winner in this
relationship and he received designs for publication, as well as a handsome fee for translating
those drawings into finished engravings. In return, the upper class amateurs were rewarded with
a vicarious form of notoriety and were able to see their designs displayed for sale in print shop
windows. The images created in this way concentrated on the depiction of ephemeral fashions
and contemporary personalities and represented a fast-paced version of the modern weekly
celebrity magazines.
The translated designs of well-connected amateurs were subsequently published in large
numbers by Matthew Darly who issued several ‘Series’ and ‘Volumes’ entitled ‘Macaronis,
Characters and Caricaturas […] In a Series of Drol Prints consisting of Heads, Conversations and
Satires upon the Follies of the Age. Designed by several Ladies, Gentlemen and the most
humorous Artists’ (c.1772).25 This was followed in 1773 by an exhibition held at the Darly’s print
shop at Number 39 the Strand, to showcase the 233 preparatory drawings for these prints.
Visitors to this event were presented with a free print on entry and they were also given the
opportunity to speculate on the identity of the polite amateur artists whose work they had come to
see. The catalogue that accompanied the exhibition noted tantalisingly that 106 of the drawings
It was a ‘diverting species of designing that will certainly keep those that practice it out of the hipps or vapours.’ Mary
Darly in her Book of Hints (c. 1762).
24
The Darlys were operational in the field of print selling from the 1750s until around 1778, when their popularity was
eclipsed by other competing print selling firms, including the Humphreys who published all of Gillray’s works.
23
26
were produced by ‘Gentlemen’, 73 by ‘Ladies’ and 54 by ‘Artists’. 26 The true authorship of these
images remained unspoken in order to preserve the reputation of the noble producer from the
taint of a commercial business transaction. The inherently clandestine nature of this form of
artistic production therefore heightened its appeal for the artist and the curious consumer alike.
Despite the preservation of a communal form of anonymity, the production of satirical prints was
also marketed as ‘a distinct social accomplishment’ for a certain class of artistic producer. The
attendant elevation of amateur artistic status that accompanied it was therefore intimately
associated with a construction of social privilege that sidelined material profit and emphasised the
independent and objective nature of the conveniently placed social observer. This distinction
rested on the stated freedom to choose to adopt or relinquish an artistic vocation, depending on
the reaction of the audience, especially when the gentleman amateur was ‘voluntarily engaged in
irritating and entertaining his Peers [and] striking out among his equals.’ 27 From its initial
incarnation as a potent political weapon, caricature and the English satirical print genre was
championed and then shaped by the social elite into a ‘diverting’ and generally harmless past
time. Caricature underwent a process of internalisation and sanitisation and its later social
manifestation in the 1770s was characterised by both its safety and its intense narcissism. It held
a mirror up to its own image and was extraordinarily pleased with what it saw.
Sir Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811)
25
The Darlys published six sets of Macaroni prints between 1771 and 1773; each set contained 24 portraits. See the later
discussion of Macaronis and also Shearer West, ‘The Darly Macaroni Prints and the Politics of Private Man’, Eighteenth
Century Life, 2001; 25: 170-182.
26
It is interesting to speculate on the gender-division of print production by upper class amateurs. ‘It is likely that
educated women were often the nameless designers of the political prints of the period […] In the case of personal
caricature an social satire, the contributions of women are easier to establish.’ See Donald, The Age of Caricature:
Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III, 17. Horace Walpole collected caricatures drawn by his friends the Countess of
Burlington and Lady Diana Beauclerk and the inventory of his house at Strawberry Hill includes numerous images
produced by Lady Diana in a variety of different media.
27
‘Not an essential skill […] like horsemanship or card-playing, more a waspish sideline.’ See Feaver, Masters of
Caricature: From Hogarth and Gillray to Scarfe and Levine, 45.
27
Sir Henry William Bunbury was the second son of a Baronet and he displayed an early talent for
drawing and for capturing humorous incidents on paper. Bunbury’s family was extremely wellconnected and he was portrayed as a 14 year old schoolboy in the guise of an artist by Sir
Joshua Reynolds in 1764.28 After a traditional education, Bunbury made the Grand Tour in 176970 and like many of his peers, he was fascinated by what he saw and experienced. In
accordance with the contemporary mores of the upper class collector and the connoisseur,
Bunbury developed a passion for recording the individual characters that he encountered on his
travels. This form of psychological diarising was also very much in keeping with his sociable
personality and his ready desire to provide entertainment for an immediate circle of friends. The
Grand Tour formed part of a shared language of experience amongst his peers and it also
reinforced a strong sense of cultural belonging. There was a growing requirement for a
spokesman to articulate the complex feelings surrounding the question of identity in relation to
others both at home and abroad and Bunbury capitalised on this. These feelings highlighted the
curiously English combination of insecurity and curiosity. Bunbury’s approach to his art was
therefore not that of a serious producer, but of an enthusiastic and energetic social observer. 29
Bunbury’s convivial nature and excellent social connections guaranteed his popularity and these
qualities, united with a genuine talent for drawing, may account for his entry into the public forum
28
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792). The portrait entitled Master Bunbury was painted in 1764 and was then published as
a mezzotint print in 1765-6 by Thomas Blackmore (c.1740-1780).
29
This is illustrated I the following extract from a poem about Bunbury by his friend David Garrick:
Shall I so long, old Hayman said and swore,
Of painting till the barren soil,
While this young Bunbury, not twenty-four,
Gets fame for which in vain I toil:
Yet he’s so whimsical, perverse and idle,
Tho’ Phoebus self should bid him stay,
He’ll quit the magic pencil for the bridle,
And gallop fame and life away.
With Reynolds grace and Hogarth’s pow’r,
(Again he swore a dreadful oath),
This boy had rather trot 10 miles an hour,
And risk his neck, than paint like both.
Fix but his Mercury, he’ll join the two,
And be my boast, Britannia cry’d:
Nature before him plac’d her comic crew,
Fortune plac’d Beauty by his side.
28
of art in 1770. While many upper class amateurs chose to publish their work anonymously in
order to preserve the superiority of their social and moral status, from the very outset Bunbury
published prints under his own name. This impulse towards openness and personal celebration
underlines an innate confidence in his abilities and also in the advance support of his peer group.
The use of Bunbury’s name as an adjunct to successful marketing is unusual and it also
highlights an awareness of the wider potential market for his images. It is probable that he ‘knew’
the core of his potential audience personally and that publishing prints was simply another means
of communicating directly with a group of like-minded individuals. There is irony in the fact that in
this case, ‘the public’ was seen by Bunbury and members of his own social class as the extension
of an exclusive and yet thoroughly known private domain. This resulted in an intriguing crossover between the distinctive private and public spheres, making Bunbury’s initial impulse to
publish his experiences seem more ‘natural’ and much less ground-breaking. In this way, it was
simply a logical progression from ‘being good at drawing’ and wanting to amuse friends, to
publishing prints – the modern equivalent of starting a Facebook site.
Bunbury’s art
Bunbury began his career with the production of perceptive and documentary sketch impressions
of the peasants and working people that he encountered during his Grand Tour travels in France.
He displayed a particular fascination for the iconic figure of the French postilion and at least four
variations of an individual portrayed in a variety of different attitudes appear in the British Museum
collection (1769-70).30 1 Bunbury’s early sketches are characterised by their surprising freshness
and energy and unusually, they are engraved by Bunbury himself.31 Bunbury’s talent for distilling
the exotic nature of the ‘foreigner’ accorded well with the contemporary taste for xenophobic art
and he was encouraged to show a representative piece of his work, La Cuisine de la Poste, at the
Royal Academy exhibition in 1770. This received an enthusiastic reception and Bunbury went on
‘The Old Painter’s Soliloquy upon seeing Mr. Bunbury’s Drawings’, in Sir Charles Bunbury (ed). The Correspondence of
Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart. (London, 1838), 377.
30
BM 4743-46.
31
Bunbury learnt to etch at some point during his time at Westminster School. Although he etched only a few of his own
plates during the early part of his career, he is unusual in possessing this skill. Most amateurs could not etch and sent
their drawings to print sellers in order to have them translated into finished plates.
29
to exhibit a companion piece, View on the Pont Neuf at Paris, in the following year. Both of these
drawings were subsequently translated by the Darlys into highly marketable consumer objects.
However, it is noticeable that when Bunbury relinquished the task of etching to the professional,
his subtle and finely observed figures become coarse and formulaic stereotypes. The grotesque
and nightmare-ish quality of The Lemonade Seller (1771) was designed to appeal to a wider, but
much less subtle and discriminating audience. 2
Bunbury’s association with the Darlys lasted for at least a year and his pencil and chalk drawings
of French peasants were included in a popular series of prints and many of Bunbury’s early
figures were then incorporated into a large print entitled A View of the Place of Victories (1772).32
3 In this year, Bunbury commenced what was to become a highly successful decade of
association with the engraving and print selling family of Charles and James Bretherton. In a
direct response to the fashion for the exotic amalgamation of Continental and English imagery,
Bretherton issued a set of Bunbury’s prints that detailed different social variants of the
fashionable Macaroni figure (1772). These images were accompanied by the consummate
interpretation of the sturdy middle class Englishman, ‘Jeremiah Sago’, in the print entitled The
Delights of Islington (1772). 4 As well as an illustration to Scarron’s 1651 Roman Comique
known as The Slumbers of Ragotin Interrupted (1773), Bunbury also produced a series of four
illustrations to accompany Sterne’s immensely popular novel Tristram Shandy (1761-67)33 5 The
popularity of his French images proved incredibly long-lived and pairs of prints that highlighted
the contrast between French and English postilions, couriers, tailors and barbers, were published
in 1774. Bunbury also exploited his University experiences in a number of prints that dealt with
the petty dramas of student life, including The Christmas Academics – A Combination Game at
32
This print was later re-interpreted by Rowlandson. See the discussion of and comparison between the two artists.
Rowlandson’s beautiful watercolour sketch is entitled La Place des Victoires a Paris (1789).
33
The Siege of Namur, The Damnation of Obadiah, The Overthrow of Dr. Slop, The Battle of the Cataplasm (BM
5213-16)
16). See Peter de Voogd, ‘Henry William Bunbury, Illustrator of Tristram Shandy,’ The Shandean, 3 (1991), 138-144; J.
C. T. Oates, Shandyism and Sentiment, 1760-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968).
30
Whist (1773), The Hopes of the Family – An Admission to University (1774) and Cambridge Pot
Fair (1777), among others.34
Following increased fears of a French invasion, Bunbury entered service with the West Suffolk
Militia in 1778 and spent time with the Army at Coxheath Camp provided him with the raw
material for another series of popular prints, including A Visit to the Camp (1779), Nancy (1780),
The Relief (1781) and A Camp Scene (1784), among many others. Bunbury’s love of horses was
reflected in a series of prints that addressed comic equestrian misadventure, beginning with the
large-scale A Riding School (1780). 6 This image provided a humorous commentary on the
themes of learning and social belonging and it also cleverly utilised figures from Plate II of
Hogarth’s 1753 treatise Analysis of Beauty to heighten the overall comic effect. 35 The success of
this print encouraged Bunbury to produce a series of four plates entitled Hints to Bad Horsemen
(1781) in the form of a narrative on the trials of amateur equestrians and these became the basis
for his first illustrated book, entitled The Academy for Grown Horsemen (1787). The decorative
nature and non-threatening sense of humour conveyed in these prints appealed to a wide
audience, but Bunbury also catered enthusiastically to those with a more refined taste for
literature. He illustrated Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey (1768) with The Departure of La Fleur to
Montreuil (1781) and A Mendicant (1794); he produced two parodies of Mackenzie’s The Man of
Feeling (1771) in prints entitled Morning: or, The Man of Taste and Evening: or, The Man of
Feeling (1781) and also illustrated Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) with two
large-scale and sensitive prints entitled Charlotte and The First Interview of Werther and
Charlotte (both 1782). 7
Bunbury’s enthusiasm for literature was combined with a love of sentimental female portraiture
and he created a series of paired images as illustrations to a number of literary works. He
produced the sensitively-rendered Patty (1783) Blouzelind and Susan, Cicely and Marian (all
34
Pot Fair Cambridge was also engraved by Rowlandson at some point between 1777 and 1790.
This also contains a portrait of Bunbury’s friend the military Adjutant, amateur caricaturist and antiquarian Sir Francis
Grose (1731-91).
35
31
1781) to accompany Gay’s poems, while his large-scale print entitled The Village Ale-House
(1787), inspired by Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village, includes snapshot images of female
characters set in an idealised version of rural England. 8 Bunbury also produced perceptive
‘tourist’ and ‘souvenir’ portraits of female peasants observed on his travels through France, Italy
and Wales, of which Peasants in the Vale of Langollen (1783) is a representative example. 9
Other images in this style include A Tale of Love and Jealousy, Love and Hope, Love and
Jealousy (all 1786) and Modern Graces (1791), many of which were dedicated to noble
patronesses.36 During this time, Bunbury also issued the large-scale prints of St. James’s Park
(1783) and The Gardens of Carleton House (1785), with the latter dedicated to the Prince of
Wales as the owner of the original drawing. A series of illustrations to The Arabian Nights was
published between 1785 and 1790, and Bunbury successfully exhibited eight of these drawings at
the Royal Academy in 1785. 10 He also produced numerous illustrations to Shakespeare plays
and these were published for Thomas Macklin’s Poet’s Gallery in Fleet Street between 1788 and
1796. 11 Bunbury worked in collaboration with the immensely popular artist Angelica Kauffmann
(1741-1807) on a series of drawings for the children’s book entitled Angelica’s Ladies Library; or,
Parents and Guardian’s Present (1794). The delicate print Morning Employments is a
representative example of these illustrations. 12 Images such as Affliction (1783), Misery (1788)
and The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green and his Daughter (1790) were similarly inspired by
literary themes, but contained an element of basic social comment. 13
The range and scope of Bunbury’s work was incredibly broad and this brief description does not
include mention of his many other prints, drawings and watercolour sketches of which the
stunning illustration to M. G. Lewis’s The Monk, entitled The Water Sprite (1795) is a beautiful
example. 14 Bunbury was an honorary exhibitor to the Royal Academy between 1780 and 1808,
during which time he submitted a total of forty six drawings, later augmented with a number of
landscape paintings in oil, inspired by his retirement to the Lake District. He was perhaps best
known by his contemporaries for his innovative, large-scale social and equestrian panoramas,
36
These include Atalanta (1790) to the Duchess of Salisbury and The Song and The Dance (1782) to the Duchess of
32
including A City Hunt, Hyde Park (both 1781) A Long Minuet as danced at Bath and The
Propagation of a Lie (both 1787).37 Bunbury also wrote and illustrated four extremely popular
works of fiction and poetry. The first book, entitled The Academy for Grown Horsemen (1787)
was dedicated to the political caricaturist, George Townshend and issued under the pseudonym
‘Geoffrey Gambado’. The book adopted an epistolary format in which the fictitious narrator and
editor both dispense comic advice on how best to become a proficient equestrian. The tone of
the text was humorous and ironic and the sense of comedy and enjoyment was cleverly
reinforced by Bunbury’s amusing illustrations. The companion work, The Annals of
Horsemanship (1791), was composed in a similar vein, with ‘Geoffrey Gambado’ in the guise of
an equestrian agony aunt who gave spurious advice to his gullible admirers. Bunbury’s vibrant
illustrations reinforced the weight of the comic argument and, like those of The Academy, they
were also published for sale as separate prints. Bunbury’s much later book, The Tales of the
Devil (1801) consisted of four comic ‘Gothic’ tales, accompanied by energetic sketch illustrations,
while The Tales of Terror (1801) contained twenty Gothic ‘shock-horror’ stories set in a verse
format. Although this book included only one illustration in the form of an emblematic skull and
cross bones frontispiece, it was printed entirely in red ink to heighten both the surprise visual
impact of the text.
Despite Bunbury’s consistent output of prints and his huge contemporary popularity, almost two
hundred years after his death, few people are now aware that David Garrick compared him to the
artist Sir Francis Hayman or that Horace Walpole enthusiastically labelled him ‘the second
Hogarth’.38 The main body of twentieth century criticism regarding Bunbury amounts to several
oblique references in M. Dorothy George’s 1967 study of graphic satire, one article and an
exhibition catalogue by J. C. Riely in 1975 and 1983 respectively and one article by Marilyn
Clements in 1978.39 Although Bunbury is mentioned glancingly in Diana Donald’s 1996 study of
Devonshire.
37
The large-scale print entitled Lumps of Pudding (1811) includes dancing figures similar to those in A Long Minuet but is
much more coarsely rendered and was published several months after Bunbury’s death.
38
See Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England (Strawberry Hill, 1762-71), IV, viii.
39
Bunbury Bicentenary Exhibition at the Athenaeum, Bury St. Edmunds, 3-15 July 1950; M. D. George, Hogarth to
Cruikshank, Social Change in Graphic Satire (London: Penguin, 1967), 57, 68-69, 144-147; Frank Davis, ‘The Lively
33
British satirical art and also features in Peter de Voogd’s beautifully illustrated exhibition
catalogue of that year, his work has never been the subject of any major study, nor has it ever
been comprehensively catalogued.40 This scholarly neglect stands in remarkable contrast with
the attention paid to Bunbury during his lifetime. Horace Walpole developed an early enthusiasm
for Bunbury’s work and was directly responsible for the establishment of Bunbury’s reputation as
a talented artist.41 Walpole recorded his opinion in Anecdotes of Painting in England (1780):
There will be found the living etchings of Mr. H. Bunbury, the second Hogarth, and first
imitator who ever fully equalled his original; and who, like Hogarth, has more humour
when he invents, than when he illustrates – probably because genius can draw from the
sources of nature with more spirit than from the ideas of another.42
The hyperbolic tone of Walpole’s compliment was repeated in an article published in the
Hibernian Magazine in 1790. The Editor emphasised the fresh, light hearted nature of Bunbury’s
work and associated this with a peculiarly English form of art:
The lovers of humour were inconsolable for the loss of Hogarth, but from his ashes a
number of sportive geniuses have sprung up, and the works of Bunbury, Rowlandson &c
&c have entertained us with an infinite variety of subjects, represented in a new and
uncommon style, which though it may fall under the rigid frown of the austere virtuoso,
who can relish nothing that is not of the Roman school, yet the sons of mirth and good
humour will still laugh in spite of the dictatorial fiats of the dilettanti. 43
The opinions of those commentators who stressed the innovatory and entertaining qualities of
Bunbury’s work were balanced with those who believed that social privilege was wholly
incompatible with the struggle allied to the creation of great art. These views were characteristic
Henry Bunbury’ in Art and Antiques Weekly, Vol. 20, no. 3, (9 August 1975), 16-17; John Riely, ‘Horace Walpole and “the
second Hogarth’’ in Eighteenth Century Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Autumn 1975), 28-44; Marilyn Clements, ‘Henry
William Bunbury, Gentleman Caricaturist,’ The Proceedings of The Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, Vol.
XXIV, part 2, (1978) 129-136; John Riely, ‘Henry William Bunbury, 1750-1811’ at Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury,
28 February-10 April 1983; Peter de Voogd, ‘Henry William Bunbury, Illustrator of Tristram Shandy’ The Shandean
3 (1991), 138-144; Peter de Voogd, Henry William Bunbury, 1750-1811, The Raphael of Caricaturists’ at the
Rijksmuseum Twenthe, 1996 (catalogue by Peter de Voogd); Diana Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in
the Reign of George III (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996), 35-36.
40
The BM website collection of Bunbury’s prints has recently included contributions regarding print seller’s catalogues and
details from Tim Clayton.
41
Walpole made a personal collection of Bunbury’s prints and pasted them into two large volumes labelled Etchings by
Henry William Bunbury Esq. And After His Designs. These volumes are now in the collection of W. S. Lewis. Just five
years after Bunbury published his first print, Walpole wrote to the Countess of Upper Ossory regarding his project: ‘I am
obeying the Gospel, and putting my house in order, am arranging my prints and papers, am composing books, in the
literal sense, and in the only sense I will compose books any more, I am pasting Henry Bunbury’s prints into a volume.’
W. S. Lewis et al (ed.), The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence (New Haven, Conn., 1937- ), XXXII, 304.
42
Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England (Strawberry Hill, 1762-71), IV, viii.
34
of the growing emphasis placed on Bunbury’s social status and the attractiveness of his
personality, and both were used as a means of excusing the so-called amateur nature of his art:
The celebrated Bunbury seemed formed expressly to be courted by the most eminent of
his contemporaries; he had married one of the beautiful Miss Hornecks; the Duke and
Duchess of York were delighted with his company; amongst the brilliant assemblies at
Wynnstay, Bunbury’s society was the most relished; Walpole, Garrick, Reynolds and
Goldsmith were constantly laying adoration at his feet, or exchanging gallant little
pleasantries with this favoured child of fortune; West and Reynolds were respectfully
solicitous that he should send his contributions to the Royal Academy; the writers of the
day were given to deplore that the occupations of Town and country life, the court, the
hunting-field, and the ceremony of receiving company at his country-house or paying
visits to the seats of his noble friends, sadly interfered with the exercise of his artistic
abilities.44
Bunbury’s obituary in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1811 elaborated his many social blessings
and while the ‘exquisite humour’ and ‘grace and elegance’ of his private drawings was lauded,
significantly, no mention was made of his published prints. Instead, Bunbury was elevated to the
status of a sentimental super-hero with ‘feelings the most benevolent, […] affections the most
delicate […] heart the most sincere’. This view highlighted Bunbury’s personal qualities rather
than his artistic talents and acted as secure holding framework within which acquaintances were
able to testify to ‘the extraordinary tenderness of his disposition, to his kind and active friendship,
to his universal benevolence.’ However, none of these individuals were willing to speculate on
Bunbury’s ability to intuit the public taste and demand for graphic art, or comment on his
considerable success as commercial manufacturer.45 In fact, Bunbury emerges from the
encomiums of the early nineteenth century not as an artist at all, but as a paragon of benevolent
and noble paternalism. These were qualities that ostensibly bore little direct relation to his
abilities as a graphic designer and his creation of a series of commercially successful prints.
Although an extravagant regard for Bunbury lived on in some quarters, the over-inflated
estimation of his greatness had all but evaporated by the mid-1820s.46 John Wilson asserted in
Walker’s Hibernian Magazine [21], Part I (1790), 385.
Joseph Grego, Rowlandson the Caricaturist: A Selection from his Works with anecdotal Descriptions of his famous
Caricatures and A Sketch of his Life, Times and Contemporaries (London, 1800), Vol I, 60.
45
The Gentleman’s Magazine, May 1811, LXXXI (Part I), 501-2.
46
This even extended to the appellation of ‘the Raphael of Caricaturists’, Adriaan van der Willigen, Aanteekeningen
43
44
35
1823 that although ‘Bunbury was a great genius […] he could not draw – not he’ and Henry
Angelo compared Bunbury’s compositions unfavourably with the newly defined concept of
‘professional’ art epitomised by the work of Thomas Rowlandson (1756/7-1827) and James
Gillray (1757-1811).47 Angelo grudgingly admitted that ‘nothing could be further removed from
legitimate art than the style exhibited in the drawings of Bunbury’ and although he countered this
criticism with the comment that Bunbury was able to ‘hit off the peculiarities of character’ better
than most artists, this did not compensate for his perceived lack of artistic polish.48 There was a
growing opinion among critics that artists, like other artisans and manufacturers of consumer
objects and commodities, should be technically ‘qualified’. The concept of the commercial artist
operated in direct contrast to Bunbury’s privileged and hence his leisured social status, so that
while it was acknowledged that he could ‘draw faces’ admirably, this was no more than a polite
compliment on a gentlemanly accomplishment. John Wilson carefully itemised the exacting
requirements necessary for a producer of graphic art: ‘The caricaturist should be able to
represent everything; and then he can represent what he chooses in a very different style from
that of a man whose ignorance, not his choice, limits the sphere of his representation’. 49 By the
end of the nineteenth century, although Bunbury was still included in the accepted list of great
names in caricature, his work was also apologetically labelled as unprofessional, rather than
legitimate or serious. Graham Everitt conspired with the belief that an amateur was in fact not an
artist at all:
In connection with the subject of graphic satire, the names of the three great caricaturists
of the last century – Gillray, Rowlandson and Bunbury – are indispensable. The last a
gentleman of family, fortune and position and equerry to the Duke of York, was, in truth,
rather an amateur than an artist.50
The gradual increase in the profile of the professional artist was accompanied by a parallel
development in the wistful and nostalgic feeling for art that was neither partisan nor political.
op een togtje door een gedeelte van Engeland, in het jaar 1823, (Holland, 1823) cited in Peter de Voogd, ‘Henry
William Bunbury, 1750-1811, The Raphael of Caricaturists,’ at the Rijksmuseum Twenthe, 1996, exhibition
catalogue, 9-47, 47.
47
John Wilson, ‘Lectures on the Fine Arts’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (July 1823), XIV, 23.
48
Henry Angelo, The Reminiscences of Henry Angelo (London, 1828-30), Vol. 1, 411-412.
49
John Wilson, ‘Lectures on the Fine Arts’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (July 1823), XIV, 23.
36
While it was acknowledged that Bunbury’s work was technically inferior to that of his
contemporaries, his privileged and gentlemanly status enabled him to produce a superior form of
artistic objectivism: ‘He was never personal, and in all his designs he was free from offensiveness
or coarseness, and […] free from indecency, which, considering the age in which he lived, speaks
volumes for his kindly disposition and high moral rectitude’.51 This view echoed earlier praise of
Bunbury’s non-partisan nature by J. P. Malcolm who described Bunbury as a ‘gentleman’ who did
not injure those who were ‘not accountable to him for the singularities of their features, persons,
or manners, or their deviations from a particular path prescribed by party in politics’. 52 While art
was fair-minded and genteel, it was also tainted with the association of amateurism on the one
hand and trade on the other.
Bunbury’s contemporaries
Although nineteenth century critics compensated for Bunbury’s perceived lack of professional
accomplishment by stressing his innate nobility of spirit, his work suffered in general from
comparison with art produced by more forceful and long-lived contemporary artists. The
distinction made between amateur and professional art was engendered by the increased
politicisation of English society following the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. This
climate of heightened cultural seriousness led to the assumption that art that provided the viewer
with pure entertainment was inherently inferior to art that possessed a directly-stated didactic and
moral purpose. This view subsequently extended into both the twentieth and the twenty-first
century and partially accounts for the critical marginalisation of Bunbury’s work. There has been
a general unwillingness to account for or process the eclectic range of his art and emphasis has
instead fallen upon the figure of the producer rather than the created product. In turn, this has
then resulted in Bunbury’s dismissal as a ‘gentleman amateur’, with all its attendant negative and
class connotations. Due to Bunbury’s unique placement within the world of eighteenth century
culture, he has also been classified as a producer of purely ‘caricature’ art. Under this
50
Graham Everitt, English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. How they interpreted their
Times (London, 1886), 3.
51
Henry Thornber, Memoir of Henry William Bunbury (London, 1889), 7.
52
J. P. Malcolm, An Historical Sketch of the Art of Caricaturing (London, 1813), 90.
37
unsatisfactory label, the prints that date from the earliest part of Bunbury’s career and provide
detailed images of the French have received the most critical attention. 53 However, the majority
of his work has never been assessed with any great seriousness in comparison with the two
heavyweight producers of eighteenth century graphic satire, Gillray and Rowlandson.
There is some irony in the misplacement of Bunbury’s work, especially considering his immense
personal popularity during his lifetime, along with the fact that both Rowlandson and Gillray
reworked a large number of Bunbury’s designs during his lifetime and immediately after his death.
Bunbury’s admiration for artists was noted by Rowlandson’s friend Henry Angelo who
acknowledged that Bunbury was ‘ever a friendly ally of Rowlandson’. 54 Similarly, Thomas
McLean recorded the mutual admiration that existed between Bunbury and Gillray and repeated
Bunbury’s estimation of Gillray as ‘a living folio, every page of which abounded with wit’. 55
Bunbury’s regard for creative individuals makes it possible to speculate that his relationship with
these prolific artists was based upon a personal acquaintance of some sort, despite the difference
in their social status.56 Preliminary investigation has identified strong links between the work of
Rowlandson and Bunbury in particular, although Bunbury’s relationship with both artists would
benefit greatly from ore detailed research. A brief examination of Rowlandson’s output reveals
that from the 1790s onwards, he worked on direct translations of at least twenty of Bunbury’s
most popular designs.57 These include A Dancing Bear, An Englishman at Paris, A Tour to
Foreign Parts, The Hopes of the Family, A Family Piece, Pot Fair Cambridge, Patience in a Punt,
A Hailstorm, Symptoms of Restiveness, An Easter Hunt, A City Hunt, A Country Club, The
Shaver and the Shavee, A Barber’s Shop, Anglers of 1811, Comforts of an Irish Fishing Lodge,
Procession of a Country Corporation and the four images of A Calf’s Pluck. Rowlandson’s
earliest reworking, or certainly partial recycling of a number of themes from Bunbury’s work dates
Bunbury’s large-scale images have also been more recently discussed by Diana Donald in terms of their decorative
value and impact. See Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III, 95-96.
54
He also said that ‘certain of Bunbury’s designs were engraved by Rowlandson, who always transferred his own style to
them.’ Angelo, The Reminiscences of Henry Angelo, 1, 369, 76.
55
Thomas McLean, Illustrative Description of the General Works of Mr. James Gillray (London, 1830), 388.
56
See particularly the letter from Sir Benjamin West R.A. to Bunbury, 17 April 1803, in which West replies to Bunbury’s
request for information regarding the admission procedure to the Royal Academy School for a young student. In
Bunbury, The Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer, 444-446.
57
The dates of these images range from c.1799-1807, according to Henry Angelo in The Reminiscences of Henry Angelo.
53
38
from 1789 and it is also possible that he used Bunbury’s A View of the Place of Victories in Paris
(1772) as the basis for his later image entitled La Place des Victoires a Paris (1789). 3, 15
Bunbury and Rowlandson shared a basic temperamental similarity and their sense of humour and
general enthusiasm and appreciation of life is evident throughout their work. Both artists
produced a series of images portraying dogs, horses and country sports, and this appreciation of
the simple life was then combined in Bunbury’s two volumes of humorous equestrian
misadventures, The Academy for Grown Horsemen (1787) and The Annals of Horsemanship
(1791). Rowlandson produced subtle redesigns of Bunbury’s original illustrations when both
books were re-issued by the publisher Rudolph Ackermann in 1798. Rowlandson’s genuine
appreciation and respect for Bunbury’s vision meant that the balance of his design remained
uncompromised. Instead, he carefully embellished each plate with a more solid background and
augmented the central story with a variety of subsidiary comic incidents. The themic similarities
between Bunbury and Rowlandson also included a fondness for military themes, a delight in the
depiction of the female form and a real love for the theatre. In fact, the two artists approached
each other most nearly in their shared enthusiasm for drama and for visual entertainment and
both produced a series of pencil and wash sketches depicting actresses, dancers and
audiences.58 This joint passion was reflected in the varied portrayal of the artist and the observer
within a single image. Rowlandson also reproduced many of Bunbury’s visual motifs in his own
work, including the gentleman who squints rudely through an eyeglass at others, especially if they
are members of a different gender or social class. Several of Rowlandson’s images are
stylistically and compositionally reminiscent of Bunbury’s style, and this is especially marked in
the print entitled All Fours (1783). 16 Both artists shared a similar appreciation of humour and
dramatic design so that while Rowlandson reproduced many of Bunbury’s drawings, he changed
few of their constituent parts and instead preserved the strength and the meaning of the original
design.
58
See Brett Waller & James L. Connelly, ‘Thomas Rowlandson and the London Theatre’, Apollo, 86 (August 1967).
39
The connections between the art of Gillray and that of Bunbury are less immediately obvious.
Although many of Gillray’s prints pay glancing homage to Bunbury’s original designs, the closest
resemblance between the two artists’ work is visible in Gillray’s prints entitled A Smoking Club
(1793) with Bunbury’s print of the same name (1792); Gillray’s The Gout (1799) with Bunbury’s
Origin of the Gout (1785); Gillray’s The Graces in A High Wind (1810) with Bunbury’s Modern
Graces (1791); Gillray’s Windy Weather and The Squall (1808) with Bunbury’s A Hailstorm
(1782), while Gillray’s Cockney Sportsmen (1800) may also be compared with Bunbury’s City
Foulers – Mark! (1785). The only print by Bunbury that Gillray reworked in its entirety was A
Barber’s Shop in Assize Time (1785 original reworked in 1811) and in his hands this jovial scene
was translated into one loaded with bitter symbolism and foreboding. 17 While Rowlandson’s
eclectic taste and appreciation of commercial forces led him to produce everything from portraits
to pornography, Gillray was less preoccupied with entertaining or tailoring his work to an external
audience and his art represented a more cerebral than visual or decorative form of entertainment.
Similarly, his wide-ranging imagination revolted from the confinement associated with the slavish
reproduction of other artists’ designs. However, more research is required in order to determine
the exact nature and extent of the relationship between Bunbury and Gillray, as well as to
illuminate the more obvious correlation between Rowlandson and Bunbury.
Bunbury’s reputation
In general terms, critics have either underrated or neglected Bunbury’s work due to its perceived
lack of didactic and creative weight. This criticism applies not only to the form and content of the
work, but also to the artist producer himself. Whereas Gillray and Rowlandson trained at the
Royal Academy Schools, Bunbury’s artistic apprenticeship was determined by his class position.
A reversed form of critical and class snobbery is also applied to art that is not ‘serious’ and
especially art that is popular, precisely because of its unchallenging and escapist nature. 59 Art
Sir Terence Conran said: ‘They turn their backs on him because his work has been reproduced on posters, which I think
is incredibly elitist and snobbish.’ Prof. Duncan Macmillan of Edinburgh University, who in his definitive history of Scottish
painting afforded Vettriano one paragraph, insisted: ‘The analogy in fiction would be Jilly Cooper, Mills and Boon, or Harry
Potter – should J. K. Rowling win the Booker prize because she’s read by a lot of people? It’s interesting as a
phenomenon; he’s obviously struck a popular note, but it cannot be translated directly into enduring quality.’ See David
Smith, The Observer (Sunday 11th January 2004).
59
40
that lacks a serious purpose remains very firmly ‘out of fashion’ and out of step with critical
thinking.60 In the nineteenth century, commentators attempted to identify reasons for the
perceived shift in artistic emphasis from entertainment to teaching in art and this debate centred
almost exclusively on the technical ability of the artist, allied with the prevailing social climate. In
his survey of nineteenth century graphic art, Graham Everitt was able to identify the perceived
alteration in both the form and function of art:
There has been a change in the spirit of English ‘caricature’ due to a variety of causes,
amongst which must be reckoned the revolution in dress and manners; the extinction of
the three-bottle men and topers; the change of thought, manners and habits consequent
on the introduction of steam, railways and the electric telegraph. 61
Bunbury produced art from c.1770 to 1810, a period characterised by acute social and political
change.62 The American War of Independence (1776-81) and the shock experienced by England
at the subsequent loss of its colonies was then accompanied by the threat of invasion by France
in 1778. The widespread enthusiasm for the cosmopolitan idealism represented by the French
Revolution in the years 1788-92 was transformed into revulsion following the Reign of Terror and
the gradual slide into lawlessness and anarchy from the declaration of war in 1793 onwards. The
threat of large-scale French invasion reached its height in 1798 and again in 1803, while the
country also experienced severe economic hardship as a direct result of a series of harsh winters
in the years 1795-6 and 1800-01. The widespread mobilisation of military forces for the American
and French campaigns caused popular unrest and repressive Government legislation was hastily
passed to deal with mass discontent and the fear of riot. Allied to this, the reign of George III was
characterised by acute political instability and party faction and this resulted in the change of at
least six different ministries between the years 1760 and 1780. There was a widespread
perception of increased social instability and the gradual erosion of traditional boundaries and
accepted hierarchies. Commercial trade increased in importance at the expense of traditional
landed values and the upper classes feared infiltration by the rising middle classes.
Art must be ‘about something [otherwise] it would not be manageable’. Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation (London:
Vintage Books, 2001), 9.
61
Everitt, 2-3.
62
This has been described as ‘the period of the American War, and those ominous thunderclouds preceding the French
Revolution’. Selwyn Brinton, The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature (London: A. Siegle, 1904), 29.
60
41
Set against this backdrop of general uncertainty, the advent of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic
wars was in some ways advantageous for the ruling elite, because it offered them a breathing
space in which to re-establish and then consolidate their weakened power base. As a direct
result of external conflict, England became increasingly isolated from the rest of Europe and this
initiated a process of self-definition through its external rather than its internal relationships and
connections. ‘England’ was defined not by its insecurity and isolation, but by its vaunted position
of martial prowess and proud self-sufficiency and these ideals in turn encouraged the formation of
a tenuous alliance between different social groups. By aligning England with English interests
against France, and all things French, the ruling elite cast themselves in the role of ‘custodians of
the nation’s traditional values and institutions’ and this drove the movement for political and social
reform underground.63 The promotion of ideas of national identity was exploited by those in
power in order to successfully conflate political and social perceptions. The resulting concept of
‘Englishness’ was based on visual, geographical, moral and emotional difference: ‘A nation is
then [composed of] a great solidarity […] and the closely expressed desire to continue the
common existence’. The fiction of national belonging was circulated in a powerful and subliminal
form of verbal/visual ‘psychological operation’. 64 Images that promoted and reinforced the idea of
a strong country and powerful and martial ruling elite then engendered a feeling of community
and solidarity of purpose. Social change was temporarily suspended and the privileged classes
initiated the manufacture of an all-inclusive fiction of national identity. This complex form of
propaganda was operated reasonable successfully operated until at least the battle of Trafalgar in
1805, when social divisions began to reassert themselves once more.65
63
Otto Dann & John Dinwiddy, Nationalism in the Age of Revolution (London: The Hambledon Press, 1988), 69.
The current military doctrine regarding the fundamental principles of a Peace Support Operation applies: ‘When
considering national sentiment, sub-division can realistically be made between the ruling elite, the body of the (potential)
electorate, and importantly, those civil and military personnel committed to supporting operations.’ SeeThe Military
Contribution to Peace Support Operations, JWP 3-50 (2004), 3.307.
65
‘Although this event was a ’source of national pride, [it] had the effect of reducing the pressure for national unity by
removing the threat of invasion, and thereby opened the way for a gradual revival of interest in reform. […] although in the
short term the war strengthened national solidarity and the stability of the regime, in the long term its effects can be seen
as divisive’. Dann & Dinwiddy, 59.
64
42
The 1770s and 1780s suffers from a crisis of image similar to that experienced by the Edwardian
pre-war era. It is dismissed as a vacuous and fashion-obsessed prelude to political and social
revolution and the spiritual and moral cleansing of a self-confident ruling elite. In simplified terms,
just as the Edwardians were rewarded for their institutionalised self-indulgence with the horror of
the trenches and the fracture of their complacent world view, so the ruling classes in the last three
decades of the eighteenth century were offered a brief respite in which to consolidate their status
and position before they were infiltrated by the aspiring middle classes and then succumbed to
inevitable social reform. These historical periods are deeply unfashionable because, in terms of
narrative or critical history, ‘nothing really happens’ and this has resulted in their alternative
characterisation as mere preludes to future action. However, the compartmentalisation and
dismissal of a period positioned immediately prior to this action, has meant that we have always
missed half of the story. As a socially and culturally situated representative of this unfashionable
period in-waiting, Bunbury deserves rehabilitation. He is much more than simply a ‘warm-up act’
for Gillray and Rowlandson. His work offers the viewer an opportunity to enter the consciousness
of a member of temporarily omniscient and complacent ruling elite who possessed a passion for
recording and documenting what he saw and, more particularly, what he knew other people
wanted to see. These characteristics make him valuable as both an observer and an intuitive
spokesman for members of his own and other classes.66
Twenty-first century criticism is marked by a tendency to concentrate on what Linda Colley has
termed historical ‘division and contest’ and this has resulted in the neglect of those who appear to
conform.67 Bunbury’s reputation has suffered because of his privileged social status, but also
66
Bunbury may be compared with the historian, G. M. Trevelyan as the author of English Social History (1944). Like
Bunbury, Trevelyan was ’able to write with an easy familiarity about the families who had for so long ruled England, and
yet in some ways his inherited sense of destiny was a handicap: there were certain kinds of questions it didn’t dispose him
to ask. […] Moreover, he was not prompted to be critically reflective about the assumptions and concepts he brought to
the writing of history. In an important sense, Trevelyan was not an intellectual.’ Stefan Collini, English Pasts: Essays in
History and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 25
There is also a ‘contrast between focusing on the doings of prominent individuals and attending to the lives of the
anonymous mass. And of course, beneath such decisions can lie larger philosophical convictions about whether reigns,
wars, discoveries, elections, and so on are to be regarded as the decisive forces of history or as essentially
epiphenomenal, the spume thrown up by the deeper movement of the tides.’ Collini, English Pasts, 29.
‘Class remained the chief determinant of individuals’ life chances and experience [it is] rivalled in its structuring power only
by gender and then only in certain aspects of life.’ Stefan Collini, English Pasts, 31.
67
‘To focus overwhelmingly on episodes of riot, radicalism, rebellion and revolution – repression on the one hand and
resistance on the other’. Linda Colley Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837 (London: Pimlico, 2003), 283-319. Linda
43
because of his perceived lack of professionalism and articulate or ‘angry’ social voice. Although
his work is seemingly untouched by conflict, both he and his art were used by the establishment
as part of the propaganda war during the pre- and post-revolutionary periods. It is therefore ironic
that Bunbury is now sidelined by the concentration on art that is deemed more ‘serious’ and
professional. This neglect is also linked to the lingering nineteenth century perception of the artist
as a tradesman and a manufacturer, and this is augmented by the gap in understanding that
exists between generations divided by the experience of war. At the end of the nineteenth
century, Graham Everitt identified a partial sense of removal caused by something more than
social progress that resulted in the inability to recognise images manufactured by the ‘old’
generation.68 Everitt consequently asserted that ‘the casual observer meeting […] with a portfolio
of etchings […] may well be excused if he doubt whether such figures [in them] ever had an
actual existence’.69
This process of visual distancing was already established in the 1830s when Henry Angelo
reassured the curious viewer that ‘those who figure[d] in the graphic satires of the early part of the
century were certainly not caricatured’. A gap of understanding then opened up between the
printed image and ‘the casual observer’ in which history operated to divide individuals from a past
that they could no longer connect with, or comprehend either morally or socially. While the act of
viewing required an initial leap of understanding, this was also accompanied by a belief in the
absolute reality of the visual image and its existence as an artefact. Gillray’s prints were viewed
as examples of an objective and ‘faithful portrayal of a social system long since discredited and
defunct’.70 The fracture between the pre and post revolutionary periods has been identified as a
conflict between ‘two cultures,’ one based on art and creative ‘amateur’ values, the other based
Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (London: Pimlico, 2003), 283-319.xi. There are ‘the apparently, more
conventional voices of those far greater numbers of Britons who, for many different reasons, supported these successive
war efforts [we must] rescue these people, the seeming conformists, from the condescension of posterity […] Their
behaviour badly needs reconstructing because it simply represented much more than visceral chauvinism, or simpleminded deference, or blinkered conservatism’. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 5.
68
This idea is reminiscent of Arnold Hauser’s discussion of Mannerist art: ‘Beauty and discipline of form no longer sufficed
and to the new [...] generation, repose, balance and order […] seemed cheap […] Harmony seemed hollow and dead,
unambiguousness seemed like over-simplification’. Arnold Hauser, Mannerism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965),
Vol.2, 16.
69
Everitt, 2-3.
70
Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III, 108.
44
on science and ‘professional’ values. Susan Sontag has noted that this conflict is illusory, ‘a
temporary phenomenon born of a period of profound and bewildering historical change.’ She has
asserted that the gap in understanding is not necessarily followed by a sense of alienation and
loss: ‘what we are getting is not the demise of art, but a transformation of the function of art’. 71
Recent critics have focused on the fact that the twenty-first century experience of this form of
historically-conditioned and distanced ‘alienation’ is therefore augmented with a degree of
curiosity. This is due in part to the fact that we are unable to respond to eighteenth century
images in either an innocent or a truly ‘authentic’ manner: we cannot effectively recreate or
reanimate history. As modern observers, we lack ‘the means of interpreting caricature images as
eighteenth century viewers would have interpreted and passed judgement on them’.72 This visual
obstacle was completely bypassed by Selwyn Brinton at the beginning of the twentieth century:
This phase of politics enters but little into our present subject. [Bunbury’s] prints are
snapshots caught – not with the camera, but with an eye and pencil […] of a life […] that
was to be completely swept away […] that is why the jottings of our artist are to the
student of this period so inestimably precious. 73 74
Critical re-evaluation
Brinton’s re-establishment of the print artefact as the viewer’s primary focus introduces a valid
subsidiary point regarding the categorisation of the historical period in which Bunbury operated.
Because so much critical effort has been lavished on the period from 1789 onwards, the years
that lead up to and immediately precede it have been neglected. It is part of human nature to
attempt to classify and simplify complexity and to bracket eras and artists into representative
groups. However, this form of labelling fails to adequately capture or subdue the restless and
untidy reality of history. In general terms, eighteenth century graphic art has been divided into
‘Hogarth’ followed by ‘Rowlandson and Gillray’, with a hiatus of around forty lost years (or a single
71
Sontag, Against Interpretation, 296.
Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III, vii.
73
‘It is of more interest to inquire, apart from this complex turbulent world of home or foreign politics, what were the people
themselves like in their home life, their outdoor life, their tastes, aspirations, sympathies, social surroundings. I think we
shall get an answer to some of these questions – an answer none the less valuable because it comes to us indirectly from
the study of Henry William Bunbury’s social caricatures’. See Brinton, The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature, 3233.
74
Brinton, The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature, 35-36.
72
45
generation) unaccounted for in between. Similarly, ‘the American War of Independence’
becomes a warm-up act for ‘the French Revolution’ which then blends seamlessly into ‘the
Napoleonic wars’. While this argument represents an over-simplification of complex critical
processes, there is a definite sense in which concentration on the spikes of intense historical
activity has resulted in a loss of the subtle nuances of a more balanced existence. Linda Colley
has noted this tendency and has aimed to rehabilitate the ‘apparently, more conventional voices’
in her work on the eighteenth century. She has also stated with conviction that the lost
conservative generation ‘badly needs reconstructing, because it simply represented much more
than visceral chauvinism, or simple-minded deference, or blinkered conservatism’.75
The broad scope of Bunbury’s work as an author, artist and illustrator deserves attention as does
his position as an interesting historical proto-celebrity in his own right.76 Despite his lack of
professional qualification, Bunbury’s prints possess technical artistic merit and they are also
‘stand alone’ decorative cultural objects and historical artefacts. They exist as and provide a
valuable commentary upon the short-lived supremacy of the amateur artist, as well as the way in
which society was visually processed by a particular social class. Bunbury’s work represents an
early example of art utilised by the national propaganda machine, especially in the creation and
manufacture of the civilian and martial Englishman. This art was rendered useless once its
original purpose had been served and its initial charge lost. Bunbury’s espousal of an amused,
essentially a-political view of society is neither currently nor critically fashionable, but it is more
than the sum of a series of labels that include ‘sentimental art’ or ‘caricature’. While Bunbury’s art
does not teach or preach, it does offer a privileged insight into the uncharted territory located
provocatively between ‘Hogarth’ and ‘the French Revolution’.
Bunbury’s output
75
Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 5.
‘Celebrity is a form of large-scale public attention, customarily labelled ‘fame’ in previous times. But celebrity is a new
market – and media-driven form of attention that differs greatly from a traditional, neoclassical idea of fame’. Cheryl
Wanko, Roles of Authority: Thespian Biography and Celebrity in Eighteenth Century Britain (Texas: Texas Tech University
Press, 2003), 5.
76
46
The British Museum holds a collection of around 600 prints and drawings by Bunbury, many of
which are re-strikes or re-issues.77 There are around 100 prints and drawings by Bunbury in the
W. S. Lewis Collection at Yale University and many reproduce those found in the British Museum.
The W. S. Lewis collection also holds two unpublished volumes into which Horace Walpole
pasted ‘about 280’ of Bunbury’s sketches and prints. These volumes bear the title Etchings by
Henry William Bunbury Esq. and after his designs and were compiled between 1776 and
Walpole’s death.78 Both the British Museum and the W. S. Lewis print collections have recently
been made available online, but items are still being added to these excellent and easily
accessible resources. Many of Bunbury’s prints are listed in the Frederick George Stephens and
M. Dorothy George Catalogue of Political Prints and Drawings of the British Museum, 11 vols.,
(London, 1870-1954), but just as many are not and still remain ‘undescribed’ and uncatalogued.
All of these prints are available to view in the British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings.
Bunbury’s published books The Academy for Grown Horsemen (1787), The Annals of
Horsemanship (1791), Tales of the Devil and Tales of Terror (both 1801) are held in the British
Library and are also accessible in a selection of other University and public libraries, detailed in
the English Short Title Catalogue. Despite Bunbury’s current lack of reputation, the prices for his
prints and books remain remarkably buoyant. A 1787 edition of The Academy in reasonable
condition was advertised on an antiquarian website for GBP 800, while one of the few copies of
his large-scale prints A City Hunt and Hyde Park appeared on the website of an American antique
dealer, at the retail price of £3,000 each for a framed copy.
Scope
Because little scholarly work exists in direct relation to Bunbury, I have included a brief overview
of Bunbury’s life and a catalogue of Bunbury’s prints, c.1766 – 1811, based primarily on my
research in the British Museum.79 Bunbury’s many drawings lie outside the scope of this thesis.
Although I have seen many of Bunbury’s drawings in the BM, I have not attempted to either catalogue or comment on
them in this thesis.
78
J. C. Riely, ‘Horace Walpole and “the second Hogarth”, The Journal of Eighteenth Century Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1,
Autumn 1975.
79
This catalogue requires cross-checking and a trip to view the resources in the W. S. Lewis and Paul Mellon Collections
at first hand in order to ensure that it is as up-to-date and comprehensive as possible.
77
47
Aim
The aim of this thesis is to provide an insight into the social and viewing preoccupations of the
upper and middle classes in the last decades of the eighteenth century, illustrated by an
examination of Bunbury’s work. This will involve the detailed analysis of a series of prints, dating
between 1770 and 1787 in which Bunbury creates a series of popular and highly marketable
images of ‘the Englishman’. Bunbury’s work falls into a number of distinctive categories
(caricature, military, sentimental, literary) and these correspond broadly with different phases of
his life (Grand Tour, University, domestic, military, Court) and also his geographical location
(France, Suffolk, London). His artistic and social determination is reflected in a very
autobiographical manner through his prints and in turn, these are linked with prevailing social
fashions and cultural trends. This thesis begins with the date of Bunbury’s first successful
exhibition of French drawings at the Royal Academy in 1770 and 1771. It ends, at the height of
his career, with the publication of the large-scale social panorama prints in 1787. Although I will
refer to prints that fall outside these dates, they will be discussed only glancingly and in relation to
the main body of the argument.80
Argument
The argument of my thesis is that Bunbury manufactured a series of skilful reflections of ‘the
Englishman’ for a number of different and equally demanding audiences. I demonstrate that
Bunbury created images in response to the intuited requirements of his audience and that these
corresponded exactly to a complex and ideal form of reality. I also show that although Bunbury
acknowledged the fragmented, contradictory and indifferent nature of society, he celebrated
visual dialogue as an ideal and universal medium of communication. I demonstrate that through
his prints, Bunbury advocated comedy and the act of spectating as a means of achieving social
harmony. My aim is also to trace the way in which Bunbury amalgamates a celebration of
individuality with the creation of an ideal Englishman. Bunbury’s image of the calm and non-
For example, Bunbury’s four published books, his sentimental prints and his illustrations are each a subject in their own
right.
80
48
judgemental observer as equestrian, gentleman and soldier represents an important prototype of
targeted artistic ‘English’ propaganda.
Structure
I have divided this thesis into five chapters. Each corresponds broadly to a period in Bunbury’s
life that is reflected strongly in his prints, although these periods also overlap. Each chapter
examines a particular theme and provides an introduction, followed by a detailed reading of a
selection of Bunbury’s prints. The close analysis of each print will illustrate and strengthen
different aspects of the visual argument. While each chapter is self-contained, links are also
made between each discussion. The five chapters will combine to formulate a subtle reading of
Bunbury’s prints and the artistic and social preoccupations that underpin them. Chapter 1 covers
the period between 1770 and 1772 and concentrates on the way in which Bunbury constructed a
series of marketable images of the French. Chapter 2 details the period from 1772 to 1783 and
examines Bunbury’s attitude towards fashion, illustrated in his portrayal of the English Macaroni
and also metropolitan promenade culture. Chapter 3 covers the period from 1778 to 1785 and
concentrates on the theatre, visual (social and military) spectacle and audience response.
Chapter 4 covers the period from 1780 to 1785 and concentrates on the phenomenon of amateur
theatricals and examines social role-play. Chapter 5 covers the period 1781 to 1787 and details
the publication of Bunbury’s large-scale social and equestrian panoramas.
Chapter 1: The Exotic Outsider: the Grand Tour Frenchman
This chapter begins with a detailed examination of the development of ‘marketable xenophobia’
as a response to England’s relationship with France. I show that continued conflict and the
dissolution of European barriers exacerbated the requirement images that expressed England’s
ambivalent attitude towards the foreign other. Increased foreign travel also resulted in an impulse
to see the French portrayed in a comic and caricatured form in graphic art. I argue that
xenophobic prints provided entertainment for an extended audience and became an effective
means of diffusing the psychological power of an abstract France. I also show that continental
49
travel by members of the upper classes resulted in the demand for images that replicated their
experiences. I argue that Bunbury became the unofficial spokesman for the Grand Tour
generation and that he subsequently developed an innovative print style that amalgamated
narrative and documentary realism with a sense of drama. I show that Bunbury’s French prints
expressed the ambivalent and changing view towards France and also provide an accurate
reflection of English social and cultural preoccupation. I provide a reading of Bunbury’s two
exhibits at the Royal Academy in 1770 and 1771 and detail the way in which their positive
reception set and established the form of Bunbury’s artistic career. I then undertake a close
analysis of a selection of Bunbury’s other French prints in order to demonstrate the way in which
he reworked and developed a highly successful commercial formula in order to please a number
of different social audiences.
Chapter 2: The Transformed Englishman: The Macaroni and the Man of Fashion
This chapter begins with a detailed examination of the fashionable world. I discuss the way in
which fashion created an effective means of social disguise and transformation. I also suggest
that the desired fashionable object became both fetishised and perverted in the form of the upper
class English Macaroni. I detail the formulation and manufacture of the Macaroni image and its
subsequent exploitation and commercialisation by print sellers. I suggest that Bunbury was one
of the first artists to capitalise on this popularity because of his privileged position. I argue that
the Macaroni print genre reflected the upper classes desire to influence the formulation of
‘familiar’ and ‘insider’ art. I provide a detailed reading of several of Bunbury’s Macaroni prints and
then move on to a discussion of the fashionable promenade as a site of fashionable and social
collision. I suggest that Bunbury responded to the desire of the upper and middle class
audiences to view their own reflections within a large-scale decorative format. I argue that
Bunbury’s prints offer an inclusive reading of society in which individuals are united in their
preoccupation with observing themselves and each other. I then examine one of Thomas
Rowlandson’s prints in order to illustrate the formulation of society as a dramatic and visual
spectacle by both artists.
50
Chapter 3: The Performing Englishman: The Soldier and the Bear-keeper
This chapter begins with a detailed examination of social spectacle and the ‘crowd’ print as part of
the fantasy of national identity. I argue that the theatre represented England in microcosm and
that the audience was obsessed with increasingly complex displays of visual spectacle. I then
provide a reading of Sheridan and De Loutherbourg’s theatrical collaboration The Camp and
relate this to the way in which society viewed the military. I suggest that the phenomenon of the
military camp provided an alternative form of dramatic performance for an innovation-hungry
audience. I also argue that the impulse to trivialise the preparation for war was part of an
escapist desire to amalgamate fantasy with the familiar. I suggest that as a member of the Militia,
Bunbury was ideally placed to create images that reflected a universal desire to be entertained. I
provide a close reading of a selection of Bunbury’s military prints in order to demonstrate the way
in which he configured members of society into a watching audience. I then discuss an
alternative example of a street performance in which Bunbury highlighted the transformative
power of visual spectacle and the temporary suspension of hierarchical distinctions through the
act of viewing.
Chapter 4: The Indulgent Englishman: The Noble Actor and Social Role Play
This chapter begins with a detailed discussion of the phenomenon of amateur theatricals. I
suggest that participation in amateur theatricals offered the upper classes an opportunity to
indulge in a form of artistic escapism and a translation of the familiar into fantasy. I argue that
while disguise and role-play conveyed a form of artistic licence, they also reinforced a sense of
social superiority. I then provide a detailed examination of Bunbury’s extended involvement in the
amateur theatricals at Wynnstay and discuss the difference between the amateur and the
professional actor. I suggest that Bunbury’s enthusiasm for the theatre gave him an appreciation
of social and dramatic role-play, while it also shaped and provided definition for his art. I then
provide a detailed examination of a selection of prints that illustrate Bunbury’s enthusiasm for
social disguise and play-acting. I argue that an awareness of the democratic value of audience
51
membership was reflected in his prints and that his privileged position as both a ‘stage manager’
and a detached artistic observer enabled him to express and resolve conflicting feelings of social
sympathy and superiority.
Chapter 5: The Sporting Englishman: The Equestrian and Social Amateur
This chapter begins with a discussion regarding the commodification of culture and visual
entertainment. I argue that there was an increasing demand for bespoke artistic products in
which consumers were able to view the exclusive and the familiar. I suggest that Bunbury
capitalised on the audience desire for innovation and ostentation with the formulation of the largescale panoramic print. I argue that Bunbury intuited the needs of different audience groups and
that he created products that reflected society’s fascination with visual spectacle. I then provide a
detailed examination of Bunbury’s iconic equestrian panoramas and discuss the formulation of
the sports of racing and hunting into an ideal social democracy. I suggest that although Bunbury
observed the existence of hierarchical distinction, he also celebrated the action of comedy as a
form of social cement and belonging. I then examine Bunbury’s social panoramic prints as a
reflection of the fragmentary and yet vigorous nature of society at all levels. I also discuss the
phenomenon of the narrative strip and compare Bunbury’s creation of dramatic connection with
the work of Hogarth. I then suggest that Bunbury’s large-scale prints offered his audience an
attractive and unthreatening reflection of society in which a universal form of visual
communication replaced more complex and socially divisive verbal dialogue. I argue that
Bunbury’s creation of the stilled and non-judgmental observer figure in his prints reflected a form
of sincere but semi-indulgent social fantasy.
52
CHAPTER 1
THE EXOTIC OUTSIDER: THE GRAND TOUR FRENCHMAN
Introduction
Bunbury’s first published Prints catalogue the ambivalent relationship between England and
France. This work is artistically innovative and taps into the prevailing mood of intense curiosity
about other countries and the development of a sense of national identity. 81 While Bunbury
draws heavily from Hogarth’s work, he also articulates a series of complex cultural messages for
a new generation. I argue that in seeking to provide a lyrical and narrative interpretation of the
relationship that existed between England and France, Bunbury brings a first-hand reportage and
documentary style of execution to the genre of xenophobic art and establishes himself as a
reliable factual correspondent. I also argue that while Bunbury’s art told a story and reproduced a
faithful impression of place and character, it also suggests an alternative reading of reality.82 His
light-hearted, universally appealing prints offer a form of psychological escapism from the
acknowledged seriousness of life, including the pressure felt by the upper classes to provide a
I use the label ‘England’ throughout this thesis, rather than ‘Great Britain’. This is not laziness; the majority of British
people called themselves ‘English’ in the eighteenth century, even if they were Welsh or Scottish. The question of
‘Englishness’ is currently a hot topic of debate, as is that of ‘national identity’: ‘It has become fashionable in Britain for
politicians and writers to ask what it means to be English. This has been stirred by attempts to deepen, as well as widen,
the EU and by devolution for Scotland and Wales.’ See Gavan Curley, ‘The Revival of Englishness’, Catalyst, 27 July
2007. The question of nationalism has also been brought to the fore recently: ‘All nationalisms, except English, are seen
to be benign […] nationalism is allowed, even cheered, and understood to represent a benevolent answer to the question
of belonging. But in England is understood to be the preserve of football thugs and racists.’ Andrew O’Hagan, ‘Lost: A
certain kind of Englishness’ (posted 12 Dec 2007). ‘From the 18th century until devolution at the end of the 20th, the
English considered their Englishness to be synonymous with being British. In large part this was because Great Britain
was itself a colonial project of the English – established by force in Wales and by politics in Scotland. Hence, unlike the
Welsh and the Scots, the English did not maintain distinct cultural and political identities within the United Kingdom: they
constructed Britishness as a vehicle for their self-understanding and ambition. Today, apart from their football and rugby
teams the English are largely bereft of symbols, rituals and allegiances of their own. Those that do exist – notably the flag
of St. George – are only just being recaptured from racists.’ Nick Pearce, ‘Public Opinion: What is Englishness?’ The
Times, 28 Feb 2006.
For literature on the ‘English’ question, see Geoffrey Elton, The English (Blackwell, 1992); Julia Stapleton, Englishness
and the study of Politics (Cambridge University Press, 1994); Anthony Easthorpe, Englishness and National Culture
(Routledge, 1999); Paul Langford, Englishness Identified (Oxford University Press, 2002); Krishnan Kumar, The Identity of
England (Cambridge University Press, 2003); Robert Hazell (ed.) The English Question (Manchester University Press,
2006); Peter Mandler, The English National Character (Yale, 2006); David Matless, Landscape and Englishness
(Reaktion Books, 1998); Wendy Webster, Englishness and Empire 1939-1965 (Oxford University Press, 2006); Jeremy
Paxman, The English: A Portrait of a People (Michael Joseph, 1998); Pete Davis, This England (Abacus, 1998); Michael
Wood, In Search of England (Penguin Books, 1999); Maureen Duffy, England:The Making of the Myth (Fourth Estate,
2001); Billy Bragg, The Progressive Patriot (Bantam, 2006); Mark Perryman (ed.), Imagined Nation: England after Britain
(Lawrence & Wishart, 2008).
82
The use of a strong narrative structure and the love of story-telling in general are important features of Bunbury’s work.
These characteristics appeal to a recognisably ‘English’ audience that responds positively to the amalgamation of a verbal
with a visual method of approach.
81
53
form of leadership amidst the all-encompassing realities of war and social change at the end of
the eighteenth century.
In this chapter I evaluate a selection of Bunbury’s earliest published images conceived during his
travels to France and on the Grand Tour. These prints provide a multi-layered reading of national
identity and articulate aspects of the complex relationship between England and France. Despite
the fact that the prints were made during a relatively short period of time, they continued to be
published at regular intervals during a twelve year period between 1770-1782, testifying to their
popularity and to the power of Bunbury’s original designs. I begin by examining the conditions
that made xenophobic art such a ‘marketable commodity’ in England in the 1770s and follow this
with a detailed reading of six representative prints. 83 For the purpose of this chapter the prints are
split into three separate groups of two. The first group comprises La Cuisine de la Poste (1770)
and The View on the Pont Neuf at Paris (1771) and incorporates a discussion of the importance
of Bunbury’s inaugural exhibit at the Royal Academy and the establishment of his place within the
genre of xenophobic art. I also analyse the enthusiastic reception that Bunbury received from an
audience characterised by its social exclusivity.
The second group of prints consists of the companion pieces entitled Courier Anglois and Courier
Francois (1774). These prints represent Bunbury’s pioneering use of an equestrian theme to
articulate a series of complex cultural ideas and a dark ‘fairytale’ of national identity. The final
group of prints comprises A Tour to Foreign Parts (1777) and An Englishman at Paris, 1767
(1782). Both of these prints offer a complex reworking of Bunbury’s formative experiences in
France and utilise a subtle subversion of the generic figures of the traveller and the foreigner. In
conclusion I argue that each of the six prints represents a unique interpretation of established
themes and prejudices and also a subtle alternative reading of national identity. As a group, the
prints then provide a vitally important statement of Bunbury’s artistic creed and a powerful
This phrase was suggested by reading Michael Duffy’s examination of the foreigner in eighteenth century prints. He
notes ‘what a marketable commodity […] patriotic xenophobia was for English print makers’ at this time. See Michael
Duffy, The English Satirical Print 1660-1832: The Englishman and the Foreigner (Cambridge: Chadwyck Healey Ltd.,
1986), 13.
83
54
example of his enthusiasm for creating convincing characters within a realistic setting. Bunbury’s
utilisation of dramatic narrative and his talent for scene setting, story telling and artistic
entertainment created a unique form of art that appealed to a wide cross section of audiences.
Bunbury’s particular brand of xenophobic prints then represented a highly successful artistic
formula that proved to be both hugely marketable and extremely long-lived.
Marketable xenophobia
In the late eighteenth century, xenophobic English art developed as a response to deep-seated
anxiety about relations with other nations, but particularly with France. Rapid and unsettling
political and social change, coupled with concern about religion, trade and security were
exacerbated by a sustained period of conflict. Satirical prints dealing with foreign propaganda or
humour at another nation’s expense were especially prevalent in times of domestic difficulty, but
particularly in time of war. Michael Duffy has called this:
the time of the most direct contact with foreigners, the time for stimulating patriotic
xenophobia, and the time when Englishmen had to provide most money from their own
pockets in taxation and so looked for aggressive comment on foreigners and foreign
policy of the type that the prints could supply. 84
The extended reality and threat of war with France resulted in the defensive belief in an innate
English superiority. This was expressed in a vigorous form of patriotism and an accompanying
tendency to behave negatively towards foreigners. The Swiss traveller Ferdinand de Saussure
noted that: ‘there is [not] a people more prejudiced in its own favour than the British people’ 85
while ‘even an English beggar, at the sight of a well-dressed Frenchman or any other stranger,
still thinks himself superior, and says […] I am glad that I am not a foreigner’.86
84
The French commentator Abbe Le Blanc, Letters concerning the Government, Politics and the Manners of the English,
3 vols (Paris, 1745). Quoted in Duffy, The English Satirical Print 1660-1832: The Englishman and the Foreigner, 37.
85
The Swiss traveller, Ferdinand de Saussure, writing in A Foreign View of England in the Reigns of George I and George
II (trans. Madame van Muyden, London 1902), 112. See also J. H. Plumb, England in the eighteenth century
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964), 33.
86
F. A. Wendeborn, A View of England towards the close of the Eighteenth Century, 2 vols. (London, 1791), I, 375.
55
The definition of a foreigner at this time was all encompassing, but because France had been
transformed into the most hated of all countries by a sustained process of historical, political and
social attrition, for the English all foreigners were Frenchmen. 87 By 1760, it was noted that: ‘the
low people all over the kingdom seem to think that there are but two nations in the world, the
English and the French’.88 However, attitudes towards France were often ambivalent and the
relationship was marked by its complex love-hate nature. The French traveller Abbe Le Blanc
was able to articulate these conflicting emotions: ‘They fear and yet despise us: we are the nation
they pay the greatest civilities to, and yet love the least: they condemn, and yet imitate us: they
adopt our manners by taste, and blame them through policy’.89 While laughing at the faults and
foibles of the French nation as a whole, the privileged members of society continued to revere
Paris as the epitome of ‘taste, magnificence, beauty and everything that is polite’. The upper
classes also admired the ‘good breeding, manners and witty conversation’ of their French
counterparts, while slavishly copying and importing the latest innovations in taste and fashion.
The rage for all things French forced many to bemoan the fact that England was ‘bewitch’d’ with
the love of French commodities. This was directly related to anxiety concerning the state of trade
and the economy:
We must have all French about us; their behaviour, their Fashions, their Garb in wearing
them, their needy Men for servants […] French Musick, French Dancing Masters, French
Air in our very countenances, French legs, French Hats, French compliments [and]
French grimaces.90
This ambivalent attitude was best displayed in what Michael Duffy has called English ‘xenophobic
art’ in which the French nation was reduced to a number of basic preoccupations. These
distillations of national identity centred on aspects of the country’s ‘otherness’ including religion,
diet, financial and moral welfare and military prowess, or lack of it. In this way, ‘particular
characteristics were ascribed to [the French] all designed to accentuate in one way or another
87
Cecil Price, Theatre in the Age of Garrick (Blackwell, Oxford: 1973), 97.
F. M. Wilson (ed.) Strange Island: Britain through foreign eyes 1395-1940 (London, 1955), 94.
89
See Abbe Le Blanc, Letters concerning the Government, Politics and the Manners of the English, I, 367. See also
Duffy, The English Satirical Print 1660-1832: The Englishman and the Foreigner, 36-37.
88
56
their differences from Englishmen’.91 Despite the graphic tendency to reduce the complexity of
life to a series of cartoon contrasts, the English attitude to France resisted simple categorisation.
Xenophobic art could be manipulated to reinforce positive or negative feeling but its protean
nature meant that it lacked the power to create lasting political or social impact. It was therefore
able to reflect popular opinion but it could not inspire or create it. The ultimate purpose of the
prints was to provide entertainment and a form of social and emotional reassurance for a variety
of different audience groups.
This reassurance became more urgent as the physical and psychological barriers between
England and the Continent fell away. From around 1760 onwards the English nation was
overtaken with a rage for European travel. The favoured destination for the majority of travellers
was France and it was upon this country that large numbers of young and self-confident English
subsequently descended. By 1785 it was estimated that around 40,000 English were touring on
the Continent so that ‘their requirements became the standard of posting inns from Calais to
Naples’.92 The national compulsion to travel was directly linked to a deep curiosity about and
involvement in foreign affairs, especially as a means of comparison and self-reference, which led
Ferdinand de Saussure to note: ‘you often see an English man taking a treaty of peace more to
heart than he does his own affairs’.93 This combination of isolationism and a need to be involved
vicariously in the actions of other nations has led commentators like Michael Duffy to equate the
English position with that of a voyeur. 94 England wished to distance itself from the negative
aspects of the French monarchy and religion, while continuing to desire what the nation
represented in terms of fashion, style and cultural sophistication.
As foreign travel became both easier and more socially desirable, there was an increased
impulse towards seeing the French portrayed in a comic and caricatured form. It was easier to
‘Christianissimus Christiandus, or reasons for the reduction of France to a mere Christian state in Europe (1678, repr.
1701), State Tracts …William III, III, 406. Quoted in Michael Duffy, The English Satirical Print 1660-1832: The
Englishman and the Foreigner, 37.
91
Wendeborn, A View of England towards the close of the Eighteenth Century, I, 376.
92
G. M. Trevelyan, Illustrated English Social History (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964), 158-9.
93
De Saussure, A Foreign View of England in the Reigns of George I and George II, 162.
90
57
condemn the foibles of a country rather than to celebrate its achievements and consequently,
prints that attacked and made fun of the French gradually grew in popularity. If xenophobia was a
response to a complex amalgam of psychological and sociological prejudices, then xenophobic
art reduced these to their basic component parts in order to communicate with a wide audience.
As a universally legible and consequently highly marketable commodity, graphic art became a
weapon in the English battle against the abstract enemy France. Although this form of art was
incapable of producing any tangible social or political impact, it interpreted and articulated certain
aspects of public opinion and ideas about national identity. By focusing on the French,
xenophobic and satirical prints held up a mirror to the English audience and provided them with a
smug, self-congratulatory reflection of themselves. This refracted and narcissistic image was a
form of cultural reassurance as well as an exact counterpart of the images produced by the
French.95
Xenophobic prints conformed to the rules of satire in pointing out contrasts in a humorous and
non-threatening way. As an alternative form of propaganda, they also provided entertainment for
an extended audience. From its earliest beginnings, xenophobic English art took the form of
emblematic, single figure constructions born of nightmarish imaginings of the foreign ‘Other’.
However, by the mid-eighteenth century, much closer observation and attention to detail marked
images of the undefined and shadowy enemy. More widespread continental travel as a result of
the ending of the Seven Years War and a wider dissemination of information about the ‘real’
France triggered this process of graphic evolution. An increasingly sophisticated audience
recognised that by giving form to the real rather than the purely imaginary, they were able to
demystify the original and ultimately render it less powerful.
Members of the upper class who had made the Grand Tour were eager to see images that
reflected their own experiences, confirmed their membership of an elite group, or simply cracked
94
Duffy, The English Satirical Print 1660-1832: The Englishman and the Foreigner, 45.
For a representative print, see Charles Vernet, La Parisienne a Londres: Le Supreme Bon Ton (1802). Hand coloured
etching, published by Martinet, Paris.
95
58
an amusing aristocratic in-joke. Gillen Darcy Wood has noted in a discussion of the modern
tourist that: ‘the inclusion of familiar faces in the photograph (including oneself) individuates the
experience of generic tourist locales’. Additionally, ‘the presence of other tourists in the frame,
real or implied, is a necessary guarantee of the desirability of the site consumed. 96 It is no
coincidence that those who were responsible for creating xenophobic prints possessed first hand
experience of travel abroad and came from a correspondingly privileged social background. They
were able to produce convincing and detailed representations of ‘foreigners’ rather than the
emblematic images that were divorced from reality and formed from rumour and conjecture. By
the late 1760s, the image of the Frenchman in xenophobic prints was much more obviously the
result of personal study. This meant that the proximity of the English voyeur to the object of its
hatred/desire was closer than it had ever been. Significantly, this occurred at the exact moment
when the relationship between them was to change fundamentally.
The irony of English closeness to France was underlined by its place in the cultural curriculum of
the upper classes. Bunbury was one of a growing number of the ruling elite who had made the
Grand Tour in order to broaden his ‘education’ as a gentleman. He made his first trip to Paris at
the age of sixteen,97 returning several months later to study drawing at the French Academy of
Art where his family heard ‘great commendations of him’.98 After several years spent at
University, Bunbury made the Grand Tour between 1769 and 1770, taking the standard route
through France and Italy and returning via Germany and Flanders. 99 During this period Bunbury
became acquainted with a number of ‘nobili Inglesi’ in Florence and was caricatured as the naïve
young scholar Mr. Bunberry by the English artist Thomas Patch in 1769.100 He also
Gillen D’Arcy Wood, The Shock of the Real: Romanticism and Visual Culture, 1760-1860 (Basingstoke: Palgrave,
2001), 189.
97
This trip was made in the company of his brother Charles and sister-in-law Lady Sarah Bunbury between November
1766 and February 1767.
98
Bunbury’s sister-in-law, Lady Sarah Bunbury wrote enthusiastically of her cousin, the Honourable Stephen Fox
Strangways, 2nd Lord Holland (1751-1836) visiting Bunbury in France: ‘Mr. Strangways is gone to Paris to the academy
where Harry is; I’m very glad of it, for I hear great commendations of him, & it will be a great pleasure to both to be
together’. The Countess of Ilchester (ed.) The Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox 1745-1826 (2 vols.), I, 215-216.
Letter dated 23 October 1767.
99
Bunbury returned from Paris and was admitted as a Fellow Commoner to St Catharine’s Hall, Cambridge on 30 January
1768. See Riely, Horace Walpole and the ‘second Hogarth’, 30.
100
Bunbury is mentioned several times in the journals of other English Grand Tourists in Florence; see Gazetta Toscana,
4, No. 29 (1769), 116. The article is dated 22 July 1769 and is cited in Riely, ‘Horace Walpole and the ‘second Hogarth’,
30. The sketch of Mr. Bunberry is in the collection of W. A. Brandt, Essex.
96
59
commissioned a large conversation piece from Patch in which his status as a student and a lover
of animals was established.101 Bunbury continued his travels through Italy and also spent time
studying drawing in Rome in 1770, reinforcing the impression that he took his artistic
apprenticeship seriously.
Bunbury’s early exposure to France represented a formative period in his life. During the time
that he spent abroad as a tourist and an art student Bunbury produced a large number of
drawings that documented his impressions of the French and Italian landscapes and the people
that he encountered. 18 He produced a series of at least five dry-point etchings of a French
postilion in different positions and these are marked by their extreme freshness and attention to
incidental human detail.102 Bunbury’s artistic curiosity and sense of the theatrical led him to
include the most seemingly insignificant details of setting and costuming within his pictures. This
visual conscientiousness and zeal for recording the minutiae of human experience betrayed an
almost anthropological and archaeological zeal and created a link between Bunbury and the
figure of the intellectual connoisseur.103 This mythic individual with his cabinet of curiosities and a
rage for collecting has been allied by Deirdre Shauna Lynch with a Lockean gatherer of forms of
experience and knowledge that extended into every area of an individual’s physical and
emotional life. In 1770, The Town and Country Magazine advertised a search for ‘Oddities’ in
which it encouraged its readers to report sightings of unusual ‘characters’ in London. The hunt
was based chiefly on social distinction and individuals were categorised and graded in terms of
their visual appearance, while they were also ranked by their curiosity status and levels of
desirability. This commodification process fed a general lust for collecting and pandered to the
ultimate ‘pleasure of possession’.104 Such forms of cultural acquisitiveness could also involve the
physical purchase, sale and exchange of objects as commodities and this mirrored the economic
A Group in the Artist’s Studio in Florence (1770). The painting is in the collection of the Lewis Walpole Library. See
Andrew Wilton & Ilaria Bignamini (eds.) Grand Tour: The Lure of Italy in the Eighteenth Century (London: Tate Gallery,
1997), 87.
102
BM 4743, 4744, 4745, 4746, 4765.
103
The Society of Dilettanti was formed in 1734 and its members prided themselves on their status as connoisseurs.
Horace Walpole noted sourly that membership of the Society depended solely on individuals having made the Grand Tour
and possessing the ability to get drunk. Bunbury’s close friend, Sir Watkin Williams Wynn was a member of the Society
and appears in Sir Joshua Reynolds’s painting of the members, The Society of Dilettanti (Group I) 1779.
101
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relations that existed between the buyer and the seller in the marketplace. By using a form of
social reportage to record what he saw, Bunbury was able to appropriate and assert his
ownership of the French ‘other’, while also defusing its inherent psychic impact. As an artist, he
was particularly interested in the portrayal of character as a means of physically situating and
emotionally contextualising individuals.
Bunbury’s peers wished to see their experiences reproduced in graphic form in order to conduct a
leisurely review of their cultural history while also reinforcing their social and national superiority.
Xenophobic art was therefore intensely contemporaneous, but it was also indulgent and
inherently conservative in its ability to reflect back a safe and unwavering image of the English
upper class during a time when every certainty was subject to change.105 The popularity of
xenophobic art and the accessible humour of homegrown graphic social satire increased as a
direct reaction against the multiplication of complex ‘academic allegories’. This form of art was
also closely linked to the revitalisation of the English print by amateurs that had begun in the
1760s with the Marquis of Townshend’s anonymous, witty productions and the vogue for comic
‘cards’ and ‘transparencies’.106 These small-scale satirical compositions were mounted on
stiffened card to enable them to be sent by post and contained ‘naïve and comic figures [that
proved instantly recognisable, effective and entertaining’ for a discerning audience’.107
This audience demanded art that was both unthreatening and produced by an artist who was
uniquely qualified to portray the requisite subject matter in a convincing manner. The ability to
satisfy such exacting customers could only be accomplished by amateur artists who had
witnessed France at first hand. In a unique artistic exchange, members of the cultural
104
Deirdre Shauna Lynch, The Economy of Character: Novels, Market Culture and the Business of Inner Meaning
(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2003), 63.
105
‘But above all, as more and more aspects of our way of life appear to become matters of choice, matters of tapping in
the appropriate code on some online cultural menu, so we look to the past for given, inherited connections that can help
provide a sense of identity.’ Stefan Collini, English Pasts: Essays in History and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999), 38.
106
George, Marquess of Townshend (1724 -1807). See Diana Donald, ‘Calumny and Caricature: Eighteenth-Century
Prints and the Case of George Townshend’, Art History, Vol. 6, no. 1 (March 1983), 46. Bunbury dedicated his first book
The Academy for Grown Horsemen (1787) to Townshend.
107
Anne Gould (ed.) with an Introduction and Commentary by William Feaver, Masters of Caricature: From Hogarth and
Gillray to Scarfe and Levine (London: George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd., 1981), 44.
61
establishment then dictated the form of art that they wished to consume, as well as those they
wished to produce it. The majority of artists were consequently drawn directly from, and
subsequently volunteered themselves from, the upper classes. With privilege came a form of
unspoken social responsibility and as an artist, Bunbury took this seriously. He was one of the
first members of his social class and his generation to look beyond the stereotype in order to
record a more complex view of France.108 Michael Duffy has identified the existence of ‘two
Frances’ at this time: the world of the despotic French Court and the France in which the
peasants wore wooden shoes, stuffed with straw or wool to fit. Bunbury portrayed both these
worlds.
English xenophobic art therefore conjured up the nation of France in microcosm, distilling ideas
about such diverse topics as food, religion, monarchy, national identity and character. Bunbury’s
art reflected the ambivalent and dichotomous character of English/French relations and provided
conflicting readings of both countries. His prints combined a novelty of form, the amalgamation of
documentary realism with the symbolic and the use of Hogarthian theatrical narrative and
snapshot action.109 Through his production of highly marketable xenophobic art, Bunbury
became an accidental spokesman for a particular social class and a particular generation. The
‘Macaroni print sellers’ Matthew and Mary Darly were well known for their exhibition of the newest
and most fashionable prints by amateur artists and it was to these professional marketers of the
graphic image that Bunbury first turned.110 Like other well-connected amateurs, Bunbury’s talent
was essentially homegrown and he drew primarily to amuse himself, his peers and his own social
group.
Many early French caricatures have a nightmare-ish quality and some of Darly’s translations of Bunbury’s sketches
also possess this grotesque quality. See The Lemonade Seller (1771).
109
See the discussion of Sterne and Hogarth: ‘With due allowance for the problems of comparing works in different media,
it seems possible to say that these artists share a preference for low rather than idealised figures and themes, a concern
for detailed realism extending to the apparently trivial, a fondness for the effects of unnaturally suspended motion (similar
to modern high-speed photography), as well as a keen sense of the comic in human posture and movement’. William V.
Holtz, Image and Immortality: A Study of Tristram Shandy (Providence: Brown University Press, 1970), 34.
110
Matthew and Mary Darly ran their print selling business from premises at 39, the Strand. Their shop is pictured in
Topham Beauclerk’s print entitled The Macaroni Print shop (1772).
108
62
As the son of a Baronet it is unlikely that he entered directly into any business transactions with
the print-sellers Matthew Darly, John Harris or, later, Thomas Bretherton and William Dickinson
and others who handled his work. However, it is probable that Bunbury employed an
intermediary to negotiate the terms by which his sketches would be translated into prints for
onward public distribution. While his social contemporaries would have deemed remuneration
from the sale of engravings as vulgar, such a gentlemanly hobby may have provided admirable
cover for a valuable second income. A run of a few hundred prints was usual and individual
prints sold from between one penny and several shillings plain or coloured, depending on the size
and state of the print. The Darly’s percentage cut for engraving and the final total from sales
remains unknown.111 However, it is certain that Matthew Darly’s engraving extended the
marketable life and consequently the sale value of Bunbury’s original work and gave it a vigorous
existence beyond the walls of the Royal Academy alone.
Bunbury’s first exhibited works at the Royal Academy, 1770-1771
Bunbury’s first published images were directly inspired by his travels in France and conformed to
the small-scale ‘novelty’ format popular with amateur artists and their audiences. The print seller
Matthew Darly published the first of these, entitled The Cabriolet, on 4th February 1770. 19 The
brightly coloured card measures four inches long by two and a half inches wide and depicts easily
recognisable French characters in a carriage pulled by two prancing horses. 112 The image is
accompanied by a small portion of text as in earlier satirical prints, but these oddly prophetic and
amusing lines are unobtrusively placed and work to reinforce the visual impact: ‘Barbares
Anglois! Qui du meme couteau coupoient le tete aux Roi et les queues aux cheveaux, mais les
Francois polis laissent aux Rois leur tetes, et encore comme vous voyez les Queues a leurs
letetes!’ Utilising the same coloured card format, Bunbury’s French Peasant was published by
the Darlys two months later on 1st April and as a single figure composition, the image draws on
earlier emblematic portraits as well as on contemporary fashion plates. 20 The print depicts a
plainly attired female figure wearing large wooden clogs as a symbol of her status as a French
111
See the discussion on print sellers in Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III, 19-21.
63
peasant. Bunbury emphasises the emblematic nature of the portrayal by including an oversized
crucifix and a fan as feminine accessories with which to symbolise France’s preoccupation with
vanity and religion. The popular anti-French sentiment expressed in these diminutive
productions, combined with their visually attractive and tactile nature as objects contributed to
their success and established Bunbury’s reputation as a talented upper class amateur artist.
Bunbury produced a much more ambitious drawing for the Royal Academy’s prestigious annual
exhibition in 1770. The Royal Academy held its inaugural exhibition in 1768, and had already
gained an impressive reputation amongst the provincial and small-minded world of English art.113
Gillen D’Arcy Wood has noted that:
The denizens of the new Royal Academy represented aristocratic, Tory interests, and in
its neoclassical curriculum and elite system of self-governance, looked to the continental
Academies, particularly the French, for its model.114
The selection of exhibitors remained a largely mysterious process dictated by the personal and
social attachments of individual members, so that those chosen to show their works were
recognised as an elite in their own right.115 Commentators have noted the fact that the advent of
art exhibitions in England heralded ‘a sea change in the production, consumption and public
profile of the visual arts’.116 The first exhibition of contemporary British art was held in 1760 by
the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce and its phenomenal
success reflected the eagerness of the English public to view indigenous art. The Royal
Academy initially mounted exhibitions as commercial ventures to raise capital, but these events
quickly became prestigious social occasions in their own right, with well-connected members of
112
BM 4633.
See William Vaughn, British Painting: The Golden Age (London: Thames & Hudson, 1999), 13, 99-109.
114
D’Arcy Wood, The Shock of the Real: Romanticism and Visual Culture, 1760-1860, 74
115
See Mark Hallett, ‘Reading the Walls: Pictorial Dialogue at the British Royal Academy,’ The American Centre for
Eighteenth Century Studies (2004), 581-604. See also Michael Rosenthal, ‘Public Reputation and Image Control in Late
Eighteenth Century Britain’, Visual Culture in Britain, Vol.7, Issue 2, Winter 2006, 69-92.
116
D’Arcy Wood, The Shock of the Real: Romanticism and Visual Culture, 1760-1860, 84. The first public exhibition of
contemporary English art had been held by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts in 1760 and was a huge success.
McKendrick, Brewer and Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society (London: Europa Publications, 1982), 232. See
Charles Brandoin, The Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Painting in the Year 1771. Engraved by Richard Earlom, 1772.
113
64
society eager to acquire tickets.117 As Gillen Darcy Wood has shown, eighteenth century society
was consumed with a rage for visual recreation and individuals attended exhibitions both to see
and to be seen acting in a unique form of spectacle.118 Despite the renowned heterogeneity of
the audiences, exhibitions were acknowledged as occasions for social ‘edification and display’.
The 1770 Royal Academy exhibition was both a glittering social occasion and a considerable
financial success, raising the vast sum of 1125 livres in admission charges during the four weeks
that it remained open in May. 119 A total of two hundred and seventy six works were displayed
and the attraction of the show was Benjamin West’s vast history painting The Death of Wolfe.120
Despite the predominance of ‘serious’ artwork, including classical, religious and historical
compositions, a large percentage of the exhibits fell within the less challenging but commercially
lucrative fields of landscape and over half were classified as ‘portraits’. Portraiture was a
peculiarly English genre and Deirdre Shauna Lynch has identified the fact that its growing
commercialisation became a guarantee that ‘faces made money’.121 Exhibition space was also
allocated to works that belonged to a number of categories simultaneously and Bunbury’s French
caricature art satisfied the demand for a concentration on character, combined with a frame of
continental reference. While members of the art establishment and the Royal Academy paid lip
service to supporting homegrown and pioneering English art, the prevailing public preference was
for continentally derivative work. As the President of the Royal Academy, Sir Joshua Reynolds
himself bemoaned the fact that a general ‘contempt of contemporary English artists was the great
stumbling block in the way of our art at this time,’ and yet he too looked ultimately to Italian and
French art for his inspiration.122 Despite this innate conservatism, it is probable that Reynolds
117
Until 1780, the annual exhibitions were held in small rooms in Pall Mall until the Academy grew more prosperous and
subsequently moved to the prestigious, purpose-built venue of Somerset House.
118
See the discussion of visual consumption in D’Arcy Wood, The Shock of the Real: Romanticism and Visual Culture,
1760-1860, 119.
119
An interesting representation of an Academy exhibition is provided by Charles Brandoin’s keenly observed drawing
entitled The Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Painting of the Year 1771. This was engraved in mezzotint by Earlom
and published by Robert Sayer on 20 May 1772.
120
See Charles Robert Leslie, The Life And Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, with notices of some of his contemporaries
(London: J. Murray, 1865), 399. See also the discussion of art on a grand scale in William Vaughn, British Painting: The
Golden Age, 110-124.
121
Lynch, The Economy of Character: Novels, Market Culture and the Business of Inner Meaning, 61.
122
See Leslie, The Life And Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, with notices of some of his contemporaries, 399.
65
proposed Bunbury as an honorary exhibitor and launched his career as one of the art
establishment’s favoured protégés.123
La Cuisine de la Poste (1770)
Bunbury’s exhibition piece is ambitiously proportioned and rendered in a strangely angular style.
La Cuisine De La Poste provides an accurately observed reproduction of the interior of a real or
generic French Inn. 21 Despite the ‘low’ subject matter and the unembellished style of the
drawing, this work was designed to appeal directly to members of the upper class who had made
the Grand Tour. The choice of subject matter also accords with the ‘insider-knowledge’ that
travellers spent a great deal of time ‘partly in inns and partly as guests in the houses of the
foreign nobility’.124 In choosing to depict a scene familiar to fellow English Grand Tourists of the
1770s, Bunbury asserts a wordless sense of contemporary brotherhood and social belonging. He
instinctively portrays an example from his own experience that is also characterised as an
aristocratic ‘in-joke’ and this renders the image a cleverly manipulated piece of marketable
xenophobia. The depiction of the French interior as a flattened and one-dimensional space is
partly stylistic, but it also emphasises the bleakness of the scene, as well as the general sense of
human detachment. Bunbury produces his own set of French stereotypes and uses the
metaphor of physical and moral sustenance to highlight the differences between France and
England.
Like Hogarth, Bunbury endows objects with symbolic meaning and here he includes a collection
of scratchily rendered religious prints of Jesus Christ and the Saints pasted directly onto the
walls.125 These refer to France’s bleak and, by implication, unnatural Catholicism and are also
contrasted with the jaunty portrayal of the frivolous French King, ‘Louis le bien Aime’. The image
123
I make this assumption based on the close family connection between the Horneck family and Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Charles Horneck was Bunbury’s friend at Westminster School and his sister, Catherine Horneck, became Bunbury’s wife.
Bunbury had socialised with the family for some years and James Beattie records several visits to Sir Joshua’s London
house in the company of Bunbury and the Horneck family. See James Beattie, London Diary (London, 1773).
124
Trevelyan, Illustrated English Social History, 158-9.
125
See especially Ronald Paulson, Hogarth’s Graphic Works (3rd revised ed., London, 1989), Jenny Uglow, Hogarth: A
Life and a World (London: Faber & Faber, 1997), David Bindman, Hogarth (London: Thames & Hudson, 1981), Mark
Hallett, Hogarth (London: Phaidon Press, 2000).
66
of the King is compared directly with the image of a thorn-crowned Jesus, so that France
becomes an ambivalent amalgam of the bleak and the extravagant as epitomised by its
monarchy and its religion. It was a commonly-held view that there was a tendency among
Englishmen to represent France as a kingdom in which magnificence reigned among the great,
but everyone else lived in misery. In line with this extreme point of view, Bunbury depicts a cold
and spiritually bleak interior, peopled by the poor and dejected. Only the ironic image of the
extravagant French King is able to smile in this picture.
The rigid and linear quality of Bunbury’s print is balanced by the fact that each figure is endowed
with a strong individual character and this emphasises the feeling of realism in terms of reportage
and documentary technique. Like restless players, the characters within Bunbury’s print shift
uneasily across the picture space although they remain partially anchored by their interlocking
shadows.126 The figures fall into two groups and each is caught in the act of movement, in
talking, gesturing and drinking. This momentary stilling heightens the impression that the figures
are real, although it also reinforces the sense of continuing dramatic action. The viewer is then
encouraged to acknowledge the juxtaposition of reality and artificiality as the French characters
engage in conversation and movement. The impression of arrested or snapshot action so
effectively employed by Hogarth is here utilised by Bunbury. 127 He includes the figure of the
postilion in his oversized boots, but depicts only half of his right leg so that it appears as if he has
just entered the room and the picture space alike.128 Details of the postilion’s hair and clothing
are finely observed by Bunbury, including the fact that he wears a coat of arms sewn onto his
right sleeve as a badge to illustrate his calling and allegiance.
The outline of a large black dog casts a particularly long shadow in the print. Bunbury’s representations of dogs are
usually relatively benign, but here the dog appears as a symbol of ill omen or foreboding.
127
Hogarth’s snapshot action may be seen especially in the figure of the expiring Earl, plate 4 of Marriage A La Mode
(1743), the collapsing stall in Southwark Fair (1733), the falling baby in Gin Lane (1751), the upturned tea-table in plate 2,
A Harlot’s Progress (1731), the falling man in An Election Entertainment (1753-4) and the flying cat in The First Stage of
Cruelty (1753-4), etc.
128
‘The vast pair [of boots] worn by postilions were brought back from the Continent by the Tourist as mementos of his
travels’. See Christopher Hibbert, The Grand Tour (London: Hamlyn, 1974), 75.
126
67
A strong sense of dramatic engagement exists between the characters and the postilion is
pictured talking to a woman whose leaning figure denotes movement, while her lips are open in
reply to his conversation. This figure closely resembles the female in Bunbury’s small-scale print
of a French peasant, so that while her costume and positioning is finely detailed, she is also
identified as a generic character.129 The inclusion of a child-like figure with a long pigtail and
domed hat surprises the viewer, although those around him remain oblivious to his presence. 130
He appears like a pantomime character and is positioned to emphasise the comic and unnatural
collection of French individuals who have been gathered here. He too wears oversized French
clogs and these symbolise an intense physical discomfort, as well as French poverty and
oppression. In England, clogs represented a form of universal slavery and the wooden shoe
became a powerful pictorial symbol of French despotism, particularly in time of war or economic
hardship.131 While Bunbury’s attitude towards the French is marked by humour and amused
condemnation, there is also a discernible sense of unease towards the vicarious viewing of
suffering in this print.
Bunbury’s concentration on the spiritual emptiness and poverty of the French characters is
countered by the inclusion of a ragged English parson within the picture space. As the only
recognisably English figure within the print, he becomes the viewer’s proxy and directs a
questioning gesture towards the old woman framed in the fireplace, thereby seeking clarification
of her role as a hostess, a mourner, or a figure of foreboding. A sense of unease is again
conveyed in the floating benediction of his right hand as it hovers directly over the head of the
black dog, making the flames behind it appear like a halo. The parson’s companion smiles in
vague approval but he remains a strangely static figure, making it clear that the notion of French
hospitality does not extend to actively providing guests with either food, drink or entertainment.
This figure closely resembles the female in Bunbury’s French Peasant published by Darly on 1 April 1770. BM 4677.
She also appears in Bunbury’s A View of the Place of Victories (1772) BM 4919.
130
Bunbury often depicts circus figures or performers in his prints, see A Dancing Bear and A Band of Savoyards (1785).
131
In Britain in 1733 the cry of ‘Excise and wooden shoes’ against Walpole’s proposed reforms was enough to stir up a
national sense of horrified indignation. See John Stevenson, Popular Disturbances in England, 1700-1837 (London:
Longman, 1992), 76-77.
129
68
Bunbury’s depiction of the French kitchen is then conjured up as a tiny microcosm of the
detached and symbolic country ‘France’ in all its confused bleakness and poverty.
The image gives graphic form to France’s strange cultural and religious customs and embodies
the general discomfort felt by English travellers in the company of foreigners. It is also pervaded
by the strong sense of foreboding and the imminent expectation of tragedy that is characteristic of
many of Bunbury’s early prints. On a mythic level, the kitchen of the Posting Inn is contrasted
with the homely and faraway vision of the welcoming English Inn with its roaring log fire, jolly host
and table groaning with food and drink. The difference between the French and English images,
one real and one partially imagined, may also underline the fact that no traveller, whatever his
nationality, would choose to linger in this place. If the kitchen is seen as the physical and spiritual
heart of a building, then this room represents England’s idea of France’s cold, hard and
dysfunctional centre. The bleak and empty interior is devoid of physical or emotional sustenance.
In bearing the weight of symbolic reference regarding the state of contemporary Anglo-French
relations, it becomes the exact opposite of a ‘typical’ English Inn and the hearty English
stereotype made popular by the artist William Hogarth.
Bunbury’s original drawing was immediately and universally applauded for its uniquely fresh
approach. The notoriously fastidious art critic Horace Walpole was captivated by Bunbury’s first
exhibited work and recorded his initial impressions in his Academy catalogue: ‘All the characters
are most highly natural, and this drawing perhaps excels the Gate of Calais by Hogarth, in whose
manner it is composed’.132 Hogarth’s attitude towards England, but particularly his estimation of
France and all 'foreigners' permeated both his literary and artistic productions and was
crystallised in his painting Calais Gate (1748). 22 This powerful iconic painting was a
consolidated vision of the French as a starving, beggarly race and provided a benchmark for
subsequent xenophobic and anglophile artists to follow. In this painting, Hogarth depicts a
French scene in which the potent visual image of a huge joint of English beef symbolises the
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vigorous, bloody health and wealth of the nation. As the thin and drooling butcher staggers under
its weight, several lean and hungry French soldiers compare it longingly with their insubstantial
and watery diet of soupe maigre. Here, Frenchmen can only fantasise about the plentiful and
satisfying nourishment available to the English. Hogarth articulated the sentiments behind this
painting and emphasised the overt sense of contrast that he felt existed between France and
England:
The first time an Englishman goes from Dover to Calais he must be struck with the
different face of things at so little distance […] The friars are dirty, sleek and solemn; the
soldiers are lean, ragged and tawdry; and as to the fish women, their faces are absolute
leather […] I mean to display to my own countrymen the striking difference between the
food, priests, soldiers &c., of two nations so contiguous, that in a clear day one coast may
be seen from the other.133
After the appearance of Hogarth’s iconic painting, ‘huge joints of English roast or boiled beef and
enormous plum puddings, devoured by stout and healthy Englishmen’ began to appear in graphic
art and these were continually contrasted with ‘soupe maigre, frogs and snails and the cooking
pots of skinny, starving Frenchmen’.134 Hogarth’s confidence in his sense of Englishness pointed
to the firmly established nature of the ideas concerning nationhood. 135
Horace Walpole’s impulse to compare Bunbury’s picture with Hogarth’s bleakly xenophobic
depiction of starving Frenchmen is then interesting. While Bunbury’s image of the French Inn
does not possess either the fluid spontaneity or the dark viciousness of Hogarth’s symbolically
loaded portrayal of Calais Gate, parallels between the two pictures do exist. Bunbury’s print pays
132
Algernon Graves, The Royal Academy: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their Work from its Foundation in
1769 to 1904 (London: H. Graves, 1905-6), I, 336.
133
Paulson, Hogarth’s Graphic Works, 129.
134
Duffy, The English Satirical Print 1660-1832: The Englishman and the Foreigner, 35.
135
See the current debate on English identity on the website entitled What England means to me: A Domesday Book for
England at the beginning of the 21st century: ‘Englishness is in vogue but it is an elusive notion. When it comes to
defining English identity culturally one useful rule of thumb has been: what you see is what you don’t get, a phrase that
goes a long way, perhaps, towards explaining those social and cultural characteristics that many have thought definitive of
Englishness: hypocrisy, which is a way of not saying what you mean; witticism, which is a way of avoiding serious
argument; gentility, which is a way of concealing more vulgar passions; civility, which is a way of moderating self-interest;
tolerance, which is a way of ignoring others; self-criticism, which is another measure of self-esteem The arts of England,
one might say, have been an imaginative dialogue between what is seen and what is got […] There is also another
dimension which goes a long way to explaining much about the politics of English identity: what you don’t see is what you
do get […] At the very centre of Englishness there seems to be a void and only when national sentiment becomes visible
in public displays of the cross of St. George – and these have certainly become more frequent since the 1990s – it is
70
homage to Hogarth’s clever use of objects as symbolic motifs, while the realistic details of the
scene and its characters are finely observed and confidently rendered. France fascinated
Bunbury and this is witnessed in his enthusiasm for capturing the smallest details of his subjects’
clothing and mannerisms in order to preserve their cultural verity. In turn, Hogarth’s portrayal of
the French lacks Bunbury’s youthful vigour and he parades figures triumphantly before the viewer
in all their assumed and shabby veniality. Although both artists begin with the same raw
materials, Bunbury’s portrayal of the French is marked by a sense of curiosity combined with a
certain human sympathy. He responds to a strong historical impulse to portray ‘the foreigner’ in a
certain way and employs a wealth of observational detail that references Hogarth’s idiosyncratic
and ‘English’ form of art. The manner in which Bunbury treats the Anglo-French theme also
provides a detailed reflection of his own personality and artistic priorities, as well as the intended
and subsequent audiences for his work.136 His privileged social status therefore enabled him to
produce a uniquely angled and penetrating form of ‘social’ art.
The View on the Pont Neuf at Paris (1771)
The immediate and overwhelming praise that Bunbury received following the exhibition of his
drawing at the Royal Academy encouraged him to capitalise on its popularity and to translate it
into an etching for sale to the general public. 137 The print seller Matthew Darly published the print
of La Cuisine de la Poste on the same day that Bunbury was readmitted to University on 1st
February 1771. Buoyed by his initial artistic success, he left Cambridge several months later
without having taken his degree and collaborated on a series of prints with Darly throughout the
year 1771. These detailed single figure studies utilised a unique style of documentary realism to
portray urban and rural ‘types’ of French peasantry. The visually arresting images entitled
Peasant of the Alps, The Dog Barber, The Lemonade Merchant, The Paris Shoe Cleaner, and
thought that the void is being filled […] anyone looking at the question would be tempted to think that the English are
currently obsessed with England.’
136
This is the idea that ‘painters paint themselves’ as espoused in Jonathan Richardson, The Theory of Painting (London,
1715).
137
BM 4764. In the collection of W.S. Lewis.
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Happy Peasant138 23 were all published within a four month period and were followed by a
second exhibit at the Royal Academy exhibition that year. As a companion piece to Bunbury’s
earlier travel-inspired work, The View on the Pont Neuf at Paris pokes gentle fun at the vagaries
of French life. 24 Like La Cuisine de la Poste it offers a finely judged souvenir image of France
that was immediately accessible to members of the Grand Tour-literate upper class. Bunbury
chose the iconic location of the bridge at Pont Neuf for his print because, like the Place des
Victoires, it was a well-known tourist destination.139
The sights of Paris were renowned for their shock effect on the English traveller and the exotic
figures of French tradesmen provided fabled images to be both marvelled and laughed at in
reality. Instead of underlining the sense of difference by including an English ingénue within the
picture, Bunbury provides the viewer with a detached and realistic cultural snapshot of an
immediately recognisable location. The image is then both real and symbolic, peopled with a
series of finely observed characters that hover tantalisingly on the edge of caricature. Each
character is associated with a particular role and all are vendors in order to emphasise the fact
that real tourists are served by this disparate group of street sellers. Bunbury relishes the display
and catalogue of visual difference and he makes a subtle comparison between the strange
French characters and their London counterparts.140 He is also scrupulous in observing every
detail of their unusual costumes and characteristic demeanour in order to increase the emotional
and visual pleasure of the viewer.
Bunbury’s attention to detail is symbolic of the English rage to itemise the eccentric and the
unusual, while simultaneously heightening the overall sense of otherness and psychological
difference. Bunbury’s interest in the costumes of different characters is also linked with the
English assumption that the French were unhealthily obsessed with fashion:
138
BM 4675, published 2nd April 1771; BM 4668 published 25th April 1771; BM 4782 published 8th June 1771; BM 4679
published 1st July 1771; BM 4681 published 2nd August 1771.
139
See the later discussion of Bunbury’s portrayal of La Place des Victoires in 1772 with Rowlandson’s in 1789.
140
See the genre of London Street Sellers, from The Cries of London by Marcellus Laroon (c.1700) to Francis Wheatley’s
Cries of London series (1793). Bunbury produced several sketches of French street vendors, including the Dog barber,
Lemonade seller published by Darly in 1771.
72
The foreign visitor was usually instantly recognisable by virtue of his fine dress, which
contrasted with the English preference for plainer fashions […] French dress was
distinguished in the prints though it was probably less distinctive in practice since any
well-dressed foreigner in eighteenth century London was liable to be abused as a ‘French
dog’.141
Bunbury’s print constitutes a visual spectacle in which the vibrant cast of characters resembles
circus figures in their exotic costumes. However, this is not fantasy, this is real life and Bunbury’s
attention to the details of costume and attitude underlines this. The viewer is therefore included
vicariously in the scene and becomes both a tourist and a voyeuristic connoisseur.142 Bunbury
produces a visual spectacle in which the vibrant cast of characters resembles circus figures in
their exotic costumes and inspires intense interest in the viewer as a voyeuristic connoisseur and
tourist. The print is particularly marked by Bunbury’s youthful fascination and attention to the
smallest details of attitude and attire, and this constitutes a visual feast to be experienced
vicariously by the viewer.
While Bunbury’s image is potentially drawn from life, the figures portrayed within it also become
symbols as they assume the characteristics of their trade. The eye-catching lemonade seller is
juxtaposed with the hunched figure of an exotic ‘dog barber’ and the expertly coiffed poodle that
advertises his skill. Surrounded by his snipped and teased canine customers, this individual is
intimately associated with the frivolous and laughable elements of French culture and custom.
While fashion is said to ‘make fools of us all’, the French gratification of human/animal vanity is
particularly associated with effeminacy and un-English behaviour. Despite this hint at censure,
Bunbury displays a strong sense of comic engagement with the characters that he portrays and
this fellow feeling is extended to include the delicately feminine figure of the Chocolatier. He is
141
Duffy, The English Satirical Print 1660-1832: The Englishman and the Foreigner, 14.
For the image of the connoisseur, see Rowlandson’s print The Connoisseurs (1799), but also Bunbury’s squinting old
men in A Visit to the Camp (1779) and Hyde Park (1781), among others.
142
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depicted as the human incarnation of the insect or butterfly motif in graphic art and symbolises
vanity and airy insubstantiality as the archetypal French fop. 143 Although Bunbury’s figures are
perceived as ‘real’ by members of his audience that have seen them in the flesh; for others they
represent the living embodiments of characters drawn directly from popular literature and drama.
Bunbury’s image therefore provides entertainment for a viewer on a variety of different levels.
In order to balance the shock impact of the scene Bunbury includes a series of more prosaic
figures within the print, including the contrasting generic figures of a heavily burdened peasant
woman and a lean French soldier. These individuals are pictured deep in conversation and while
the soldier points upwards for Divine inspiration, the female figure points downwards, drawing
attention to her oversized clogs and the defecating dog at her side, as a symbolic mixture of both
poverty and filth.144 To their right a shoeblack kneels under a sign advertising his services, while
a barber steps daintily onto the bridge grasping the tools of his trade. Like the chocolatier, the
barber’s expression is one of sheer vacuity and his heavy make-up and elaborate hairstyle
accentuate his theatrical appearance.145 The centre of the picture is occupied by a self-absorbed
figure carrying a muff and a rolled umbrella and these props symbolise his status as an avid
follower of the latest fashions. This character’s studied obliviousness to his surroundings
underlines the effect of comedy and incongruity that Bunbury creates in order to heighten the
enjoyment of the curious viewer.
In A View on the Pont Neuf Bunbury therefore uses a well-known tourist location as the backdrop
for a visual parade of shocking but ‘stock’ French characters, including the lemonade and
chocolate sellers, the dog barber, the hairdresser and the man of fashion. He highlights the
combined visual and cultural novelty of these figures and their unique constituent parts, included
143
For discussion of the effeminate French fop, see John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English culture in the
eighteenth century (London: Harper Collins, 1997) and Erin Mackie, Market a la mode: Fashion, Commodity and Gender
in The Tatler and The Spectator (Baltimore & London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1997).
144
This is a motif often used by Bunbury, including A View of the Place of Victories (1772), up to City Foulers – Mark!
(1785).
145
Bunbury was especially interested in images of barbers, both English and French, beginning with The Shaver and the
Shavee (published by Bretherton in April 1772, BM 4756) and Snip Anglois and Snip Francois (published by Bretherton on
20th December 1773, BM 4748, 4749).
74
in the elaborate costuming of muffs, bows, parasols and coiffures, in order to create a shared
sense of comedy and community. Despite their surprising appearance Bunbury does not allow
the characters to descend into the realm of clumsy stereotype, a fact that renders the print a
valuable social record. The viewer is treated to a feast of graphic humour whose power is then
dependent upon a faithful observance of the minutest detail of costume and facial expression.
Bunbury’s portrayal of the French is marked by a sense of youthful enthusiasm and the print aims
to please those who have a first hand experience of France and who therefore appreciate the
general comedic value of the figures, but are also capable of responding knowingly to realistic
detailing. While the main audience for this image would have been as discerning as Bunbury
himself, the print was also capable of meeting the requirements of those who possessed only a
limited knowledge of France, but who displayed a curiosity to be taught and to learn. In this way,
Bunbury’s print offers his viewers a detailed record of French society, while also presenting them
with a seemingly casual but also minutely observed tourist image of a ‘familiar’ experience.
The View on the Pont Neuf was published at the same time as the prints of Bunbury’s first Royal
Academy success; John Harris and Matthew Darly both issued engraved versions of Bunbury’s
La Cuisine De la Poste on 1 October 1771.146 John Harris advertised one print from his shop in
Cornhill, while Matthew Darly issued the other from his premises in the Strand. The fact that two
versions of both La Cuisine de la Poste and View on the Pont Neuf were marketed by ‘rival’ print
sellers and sold from different premises hints at the popularity of Bunbury’s designs. The social
impact of the Royal Academy exhibitions meant that those individuals who had seen the original
pictures, as well as those who saw reproductions for the first time in the print shop windows, were
keen to own a copy of what was being talked about. The demand for Bunbury’s prints was
significant enough to warrant a healthy competition between two established businessmen and
the designer, engraver, print seller and customer were engaged in a democratic and symbiotic
relationship with one another. Bunbury’s work was then both exclusive and popular at the same
time, crossing the barriers that separated high and low art and appealing directly to a number of
75
different social groups and audiences.147 While the subject matter was capable of shifting its
shape in order to replicate succeeding social viewpoints, it also possessed a form of stasis that
gave it a comforting sense of universality.
Equestrian contrasts: Courier Anglois and Courier Francois (1774)
In the wake of his first Royal Academy successes with the drawings of La Cuisine De La Poste
and View on the Pont Neuf at Paris, Bunbury produced a pair of prints which capitalised on the
successful formula of English/French comparison, but were also innovative in terms of form.148
By distilling national identity into a question of equestrian skill, Bunbury broke new artistic ground
and also articulated a very personal vision and perception of character. As a leisured country
gentleman based in rural Suffolk, dogs and horses surrounded Bunbury and his instinctive feel for
equestrian drawing and an easy familiarity with nature became a defining feature of his art. The
prints entitled Courier Anglois and Courier Francois were engraved and published by Bretherton
on 3 July 1774. Inspired by his travels abroad, they are marked by a related observational
intensity and attention to detail that makes them valuable social documents in their own right.
While the prints may be seen as decorative comic confections on one level, their focus on
animal/human psychology and the comparison of these traits with ‘national’ characteristics is also
pioneering and intensely fashionable.
The two prints depict comparative images of a mounted English ‘courier’ and his French
counterpart. When viewed side by side as a pair, the two images of horse and rider appear
mounted for battle, both brandishing a characteristic form of weaponry. The anticipated and
symbolic collision is seen in terms of a physical and mental, or an ideological and national clash.
The French postilion has his whip raised above his head, while the English courier has a long
146
John Harris, British Museum 4763; Matthew Darly, British Museum 4918. Collection of W. S. Lewis. Cited in J. C.
Riely, Horace Walpole and “the second Hogarth”, 33.
147
The Darlys ‘seem to have been shrewd business people, changing their output in response to the fashion of the day
[…] During the 1770s, the Darlys sold a variety of prints at a wide range of prices and to customers from various social
classes.’ Cindy McCreery, The Satirical Gaze: Prints of Women in Late Eighteenth Century England (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004), 45.
148
Bunbury’s companion prints Snip Anglois and Snip Francois detail the characters and relative merits of English and
French barbers.
76
horn pressed to his lips in a form of rallying cry. These loaded gestures hint at the long-standing
animosity between England and France built up during almost continual warfare between 1689
and 1815.149 Each horse is being encouraged to move out of its own particular picture space and
into the realm of the other, and this invasion is prefigured in the inclusion of items of memento
mori in the form of a cross and gallows in each print. While the riders are loaded with symbolic
meaning in terms of their costume and positioning, a strong sense of national character is also
expressed in the depiction of the horses and in the way in which they are being ridden. The
prints therefore offer a subtle, wordless commentary on contemporary attitudes not only towards
a certain (working) class of individuals, but also to a particular race of people. This commentary
is cleverly conveyed through the relationship between man, horse and landscape.
Courier Anglois (1774)
In the Courier Anglois, Bunbury depicts a horse and rider moving purposefully through a hazily
defined landscape. 25 From a distance, the figure of the courier himself disappears into that of
his horse and the huge pack against which he is resting. Both the courier and his mount seem to
act as one entity and both are pictured staring ahead in the same direction. The symbolic union
of a Pan-like figure with a flawed English Arcadia is also linked to the idea of the man and horse
conjoined that Bunbury explores in his much later work, as an expression of social harmony. In
Courier Anglois, Bunbury depicts an image of the ‘natural born Englishman’. The courier is
relaxed, independent and physically robust and these unique characteristics are correspondingly
reflected in both the form and the bearing of his like-minded horse. While the courier’s
appearance verges on the odd, this individuality and lack of conformity is viewed as peculiarly
and patriotically English; unusual facial characteristics were associated with an independence of
character and a sense of national inclusion and tolerance. 150 The representation of an imagined
contemporary reality is then juxtaposed with the oblique examination of national identity and
engagement with different levels of symbolic meaning.
149
See the accompanying catalogue for the exhibitionVive la Difference! The French and English Stereotype in Satirical
Prints 1720-1815, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 20 March to 5 August 2007. Also see the website
www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk
77
In this print, the horse and rider are set against the blank endlessness of a backdrop that
represents a generic ‘England’, as seen from an external viewpoint. Bunbury records what he
sees and does so ostensibly without discrimination. While this view retains elements of his own
personal preoccupations, a level of ‘unconscious’ realism also reinforces the fact that the
courier’s vocation involves travel and hardship. If the lack of a solid background is an artistic
device to concentrate attention on the courier and his horse, it may also represent a view of the
country that stretches beyond the idea of the simplistic rural idyll. The inclusion of a dark element
of foreboding in the form of the gallows hints that all may not be what it at first appears, while the
scaffold underlines the importance of law and order and the power of justice. In this way, the
symbolic image of ‘England’ retains its serious and businesslike values, even in the farthest flung
corners of the country. The print is pervaded by a feeling of absolute certainty that England will
never descend into the lawlessness that characterises its near neighbour, France.
Courier Francois (1774)
In the companion piece Courier Francois, Bunbury presents a French postilion as the perfect foil
to the robust English courier. 26 The print depicts an over-sized rider whipping his diminutive
mount into a gallop across a sketchily delineated rural background. Just as the elusive element
of French hospitality appears in the outline of a ‘Poste Royale’ visible in the background, so
religion is also present in the form of a devotional object attached to a tree and a large wooden
cross leaning at a dangerous angle by the side of the road. Both the cross and the shrine are
images associated with Catholicism and symbolise France’s religious ‘otherness’. While the
landscape represents a form of rural idyll, there is also a sense of menace implicit in its
presentation. The lengthening shadows, the disturbed cross, the postilion equipped with a whip
and a sword, all underline the fact that this ‘other’ Arcadia is poised on the edge of a much darker
world. The leisurely perambulation of the English courier is then replaced with a fevered and
150
See Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III, 9-14.
78
unnatural sense of urgency. The courier is eager to pass through this undefined and twilight
location as quickly as possible in order to reach his ultimate destination.
In a direct contrast with the solid English courier, the Frenchman is depicted as a strange, circuslike figure whose horse appears tiny in comparison. Although the animal makes a valiant effort to
move in response to the whip, its open mouth and upturned gaze appear to beg for divine mercy
in a parody of religious martyrdom. In this print, the symbolic ‘France’ is viewed as an inherently
strange and disturbing entity, while its meanness is both laughed at and pitied. While the Courier
Anglois depicts the harmonious union of man and beast, the Courier Francois hints at disharmony
and a latent cruelty in which man is at odds with nature. Both pictures draw upon national
stereotypes and present what appear to be satisfyingly contrasting pictures of contemporary
France and England to an enthusiastically patriotic audience. In both images, the rural idyll is cut
through with elements that constitute a much darker reading and this betrays a deep-seated
anxiety about both individual and national identity at this time.
The formula: A Tour to Foreign Parts (1778)
A Tour to Foreign Parts re-examines ideas revolving around the image of the Englishman abroad.
27 The print was conceived during Bunbury's Grand Tour trip to France but it was not exhibited
at the Royal Academy until May 1777 and published as a print in 1778. 151 In contrast with
Bunbury’s more sketchily outlined earlier works, this print is confidently handled with a strong
sense of the dramatic, a fully developed back-story and a solid realisation of theatrical space.
Bunbury locates the main action in the courtyard of a French Inn (the ‘Poste Royale’) and
provides depth and interest with a detailed background. The print is ambitiously populated with
an undulating line of five main characters augmented with a cast of three extras and various
animals. Bunbury reserves the important central position for the hesitating figure of a young
English traveller. Dressed in an over-sized great coat, he carries a large copy of Lord
Chesterfield’s Letters (1774) as a mark of his status as a Grand Tour ingénue. Bunbury portrays
151
Published by J. Bretherton on 11 March 1778. BM 4732.
79
the student, tutor and valet as quintessential English types, characterised by their enthusiasm
and self-absorbed naiveté. He underlines the fact that none of them are aware of the prosaic
reality of their situation. It is significant that only the child-student is diverted by the strange
country in which he finds himself.
Bunbury ranges the line of physically robust English characters against a collection of
insubstantial French figures. The Innkeeper becomes ‘le grenouille traiteur’ and is characterised
by an attitude of obsequiousness, illustrated in his stooping gait and the crumpled hat crushed
into one hand as he approaches the young tourist with a long bill. Bunbury portrays this figure as
the typically poverty-stricken Frenchman, but implies that he is also dishonest. This is witnessed
in his identification of an opportunity to make money from his wealthy and naïve English guests.
Bunbury also includes the familiarly comic figure of the postilion as the distillation of all that the
English tourist found strange and surprising about France. While he is the erstwhile figure of
nightmares, he is also strangely grounded and finds it almost impossible to walk. This becomes a
reference to the fact that the French are literally incapable of standing upon their own two feet
and that they are habitually used to receiving financial support from other nations. Bunbury
emphasises the fact that the psychological emptiness and lack of economy visible here is offset
by the fortuitous arrival of financial remuneration in the form of the English travellers.
The setting in which this dramatic clash between English honesty and French treachery unfolds
belongs to the generic ‘rural’ category, but it is also represented as visibly ‘foreign’. Bunbury
includes a cathedral spire visible through foliage in the background and this reminds the viewer
that in France, the Catholic religion is ever present. Bunbury also includes numerous references
to food, or its lack, as a knife-wielding Frenchman chases three cats, seen escaping across the
top of the wall. The humour implicit in this character’s determination to make a meal from
undernourished cats is heightened by the fact that he competes for his dinner with a hungry farm
dog, shown leaping up at the retreating animals. The subject of food and physical/moral
sustenance underpins the comedy of the scene and the perceived lack of ready ‘ingredients’
80
provides an immediate contrast with the vision of hearty English fare. The English preconception
that the French are malnourished and obsessed with food is underlined in the depiction of the
relentless hunt for sustenance within the picture. Here, a lack of food is identified with poverty,
despotism and the depressed nature and spirit of the French people in general.
Graphic art was an ideal medium for ‘gastronomic chauvinism’ and the use of food as a symbol
made it possible for French poverty and misery to be contrasted with English prosperity and
happiness. Comparisons between France and England based on nutritional values were
common in literature as well as art, and even appeared in the theatre. One popular play
underlined the patriotic message that:
it was owing to the qualities [of English beef] that the English were so courageous, and
had such a solidity of understanding, which rais’d them above all the nations in Europe
[and they] preferred the noble old English plum pudding beyond all the finest ragouts that
were ever invented by the greatest geniuses that France has produced; and all these
ingenious strokes were loudly clapp’d by the audience.152
Propaganda of this kind spoke especially eloquently to members of the lower classes who were
more than ready to believe that the French survived on a diet of frogs and snails. However, this
apparently facile comparison contained a much more powerful message. All the French figures in
Bunbury’s prints are desperately thin and none of them are ever pictured either eating or drinking.
Bunbury’s print cleverly articulates in humorous form the lot of the unfortunate English tourist
abroad, something frequently dwelt upon by those who had experienced the Grand Tour at first
hand.153 It also highlights a series of contrasts between the French and the English, their
characters and their way of life and gains symbolic power from a fresh re-working of a series of
well-worn contrasts. Both the French and the English figures are recognisable types in their own
right and they give added impact to the symbolic meeting of opposites. The clog-wearing Inn
keeper is ‘le grenouille traiteur’ rather than a welcoming host; the chef is forced to make a meal
152
Duffy, The English Satirical Print 1660-1832: The Englishman and the Foreigner, 35.
81
from cat meat rather than from hearty, natural ingredients and the postilion is handicapped by
boots so large that he can hardly move. There is comedy in the portrayal of extremes, but there
is also an undertone of satire that allies the starving, ragged French with their sparse and
humourless religion. France is then imagined as a desolate, empty place in which spiritual or
religious matters take precedence over the basic necessities of life in the form of good food and
drink. The starving French are eager to pass their living costs onto the English travellers in their
care and this means that sub-standard hospitality routinely carries an extortionately high price.
Bunbury’s print therefore presents the viewer with a dramatic and symbolic encounter between
honest, well fed British travellers and their treacherous, ill fed hosts. Bunbury emphasises the
implied dysfunctionality and scrimping meanness of France, while simultaneously emphasising its
potential as a subject for English humour. The realistic detail of setting and costume are fused
with an evocation of archaic character types and these elements are bound together by the
operation of the viewer’s clichéd responses regarding cultural and national stereotypes upon
them. The viewer is then implicit in this transformation and becomes intimately involved in both
the process and the ultimate outcome. Bunbury cleverly includes his audience in a playful game
of identification inspired by his own emotional investment in the scene that he portrays.
Reworking the formula: An Englishman at Paris 1767 (1782)
Bunbury produced a print that examined similar issues entitled An Englishman at Paris 1767,
published by J. Bretherton on 23rd February 1782. 28 Once again, the print is related directly to
Bunbury’s earlier works and capitalises on the incongruity of the physically and mentally robust
Englishman, placed in direct contrast with the insubstantial French. Rather than presenting the
viewer with a straightforward catalogue of national differences, Bunbury partially democratises
and extends the joke by making the English traveller himself the object of French wonder and
pity. The viewer is invited to respond to the picture on two different levels and enjoyment is
‘After a desperately rough passage of five hours, and an equal delay before we were permitted to land, we at length
got on shore, reeling from our sufferings’. Miss Catherine Wilmot accompanied Lord and Lady Cashell on their European
Tour, see Hibbert, The Grand Tour, 30.
153
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heightened by the fact that it is assumed the English viewer will correctly identify the print’s ‘real’
object of pity, in the form of the Frenchman. By setting the scene in the immediate past (1767),
Bunbury partially distances and disassociates himself from the scene that he depicts and
suggests that the observations of his seventeen-year-old self will necessarily differ from those of
a man almost twice that age. However, part of the joke revolves around the fact that in the
intervening years, the scene or the ‘view’ has remained fundamentally unchanged. The
remainder of the print’s joke hinges upon the assumption that the French are still just as rude
and arrogant in 1782 as they were in 1767. In contrast, the English are untouched by criticism
and are still steadfast in their plain and patriotic nature. Bunbury communicates a message of
reassurance in the essentially unchanging nature of the French and English nations that was
comforting in a time of heightened social and national uncertainty.
Bunbury’s print itself is rendered in a rough, scratchy style and depicts a busy street scene
instantly identified as French by its Cathedral spire and open civic space. While the foreground is
bursting with a variety of wheeled and pedestrian traffic, the print is dominated by a chain of five
characters and a gentleman in a low carriage that moves ostentatiously from right to left across
the picture space. The main focus of the print again falls upon the sturdy figure of the English
traveller who is depicted in profile at the centre of the picture, dressed unfashionably in a heavy
coat and a tricorn hat. He looks determinedly ahead and smiles as he walks across the picture
space in a slow and deliberate manner, absorbed by the novelty of his surroundings. While this
figure symbolises the eternally curious traveller, it also embodies Bunbury’s own reaction to
‘otherness’. In Bunbury’s prints, the portrayal of the traveller in the form of the naïve young
scholar or the enraptured middle class ingénue, is always characterised by a zest for life and an
eagerness to absorb new experiences. While the sturdy Englishman pictured here may represent
an older version of the young traveller in A Tour to Foreign Parts, or a form of middle-aged,
unfashionable and socially inferior tourist, Bunbury’s depiction also concentrates on the timeless
and universal fascination with the new and unknown.
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Bunbury also underlines the feeling of national solidarity felt by the viewer against the perennially
ill-mannered French onlookers who have made the English traveller their primary object of
interest. Corresponding to their national stereotype and reputation for rudeness, each figure is
pictured staring openly at the wondering traveller and each betrays contrasting emotions and
reactions to him. These reactions vary significantly and contribute to the comic mood by cleverly
reversing conventional expectations. While the English traveller is set against a French
background, the object of laughter, or the ‘foreign’ element is no longer the Frenchman but the
English traveller himself. Thus, both the position and the identity of the viewer has been reversed
and Bunbury provides a clever insight into the ways in which the English react to the French,
cataloguing responses that range from shock, to outrage, pity and laughter. The contemporary
English attitude to foreigners was extremely negative:
All nations on earth are regarded by them with an equal degree of contempt or hatred,
which they were not at all solicitous to conceal; and upon the slightest provocation, or
even without it, they will express their antipathy in such terms as these, a chattering
French baboon, an Italian ape, a beastly Dutchman, a German hog. 154
Because it is part of human nature to fear the unknown, the natural reaction in the presence of
difference of any kind is to feel uncomfortable. However, objects and situations become less
frightening when they are transformed into stereotypes and labelled in a way that defuses the
implicit challenge of their otherness. In Bunbury’s print therefore viewers are encouraged to
momentarily acknowledge their own ‘foreign’ nature, while still retaining a comfortable notion of
their personal and cultural superiority. A sense of distance is then allied with a sense of proximity
in which the viewer may indulge in a privileged game of social ‘belonging’.
Within the print the French figures approach a form of stereotyping that is comfortably ‘known’ to
the English viewer and this diffuses their potential to shock and renders them almost familiar.
Bunbury positions a lean and clog-wearing Frenchman on the extreme right hand side of the
picture in order to provide a visual full stop and to mark the outer limits of graphic representation
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within the print. He also includes a portly friar in the picture space and he turns to smile at the
English traveller. Along with the appearance of clogs and other symbolic motifs within the print,
the inclusion of the friar figure is also significant. Bunbury drew several portraits of friars and
religion is an intangible but ever-present force in his French prints.155 It also appears in the form
of graphic images of saints, crucifixes, spires and shrines. The mythic country of France is
therefore synonymous with the contrasting figures of the corrupt and gluttonous friar and the
persecuted and starving peasant. Both these figures are symbolically fed and formed by what the
English identified as the dark and menacing presence of Catholicism. Just as the smiling
Innkeeper becomes ‘le grenouille traiteur’, so the smiling friar may be seen as a hypocrite, or a
religious zealot who grows fat while his congregation starves. Behind the friar, the epitome of the
fashionable French gentleman smirks openly at the English traveller’s heavy, plain and
unfashionable clothes and his equally rude footman mirrors this reaction. The Frenchmen both
react spontaneously to the sight before them and are unafraid of concealing their feelings for the
sake of social propriety. Bunbury notes that they respond more openly than their English
counterparts in expressing a ‘difference’ that the English might acknowledge privately, but do not
articulate in public. The judgement of others is carried out by covert means and through prints of
this kind.
The solid Englishman remains oblivious to the reactions of those around him and is absorbed by
the experience of visiting a strange location and of being ‘abroad’. He consequently fails to
discriminate in his occupation of seeing and does not register the appearance of the comic tourist
‘sight’ of the French friseur. This figure appears like a character from a pantomime, and acts as a
direct foil to the soberly dressed English tourist. In a humorous reversal of expectation, the
friseur himself displays exaggerated surprise at the Englishman’s appearance and this is shown
in the drama of his raised eyebrows and outstretched, fluttering fingers. Fashion is capable of
transforming an individual into an object of extreme ridicule and just as the French characters in
154
See F. C. Stephens & M. Dorothy George (eds.), Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires Preserved in the British
Museum, 11 vols. (London, 1870-1954).
155
See Bunbury’s prints entitled Beauty and the Beast (1790), St. Bruno reproving his Disciples (1794) and A Mendicant
(1794).
85
the print are motivated by a love of surface, Bunbury also subtly includes the English followers of
French fashion in a form of punning moral condemnation. However, within the reversed logic of
the French world that Bunbury depicts, the English traveller is transformed into an object of
ridicule for not having submitted to the requisite transformation process prior to his first
appearance in public. This was a subject treated with great gusto in other prints of the time.156 29
Bunbury’s English tourist has failed to conform to the unspoken ‘rules’ of the country and instead
clings stubbornly to his role as ‘the plain Englishman’ who is blissfully ignorant of fashion. The
neglect of this well-known and expensive ‘Frenchification’ process by hairdressers, tailors and
milliners results in a reaction of French pity and laughter.
The print’s elaborate joke therefore remains the safe property of those who are able to view it
from the relative comfort and safety of the English viewpoint. Bunbury asserts a strong belief in
his own national and cultural superiority and by retaining the moral high ground, the well-fed,
plain and honest Englishman is once again ranged symbolically against the malnourished,
affected and insubstantial Frenchman. He is held up as the reassuringly solid ideal and symbolic
‘Everyman’ in a time of flux and change. While the print lacks the tangible sense of menace
present in Bunbury’s earlier works, its appeal is intellectual, as well as socially and culturally
conditioned. The universality of its humour renders it as attractive to its audience in 1782 as it
would have been in 1767, the year in which it was first conceived. Bunbury’s observations on the
relationship between France and England as a seventeen year old are then the same as his
observations made at the age of thirty-two and there is comfort in this lack of fundamental
change. Bunbury also contrasts the ‘curious’ English traveller in youth and in middle age and this
figure too remains constant, retaining its naïve sense of wonder at the state of ‘being abroad’.
Bunbury’s attitudes towards both French and English national identity are then couched in a
humorous examination of the levels of cultural stereotype. In this way, the print becomes not only
156
See The Englishman at Paris (1770), a mezzotint after John Collet. Even Horace Walpole did not escape the
‘Frenchification’ process and notes that during a trip to Paris in 1765, he was thrown into a ‘cauldron’ of tailors, wig
makers, and milliners.
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an essentially timeless and versatile piece of national propaganda, but also a complex image of
social advertisement.
Conclusion
In studying this group of six prints it becomes clear that they share certain important similarities.
Bunbury is particularly accomplished in creating a strong dramatic setting for each print.
Correspondingly, two prints depict recognisable Parisian street scenes, another two make use of
the environs of an Inn and the two equestrian prints are set in a mythic representation of England
and France. While all the prints contain the simultaneous examination of a number of different
topics, each possesses an identifiable ruling theme. These consist of the examination of subjects
as wide ranging as hospitality, fashion, food, anthropomorphicity, and the state of ‘otherness’.
However, all the prints are characterised by an overriding sense of humanity and a genuine
interest in life and in character. Because Bunbury is emotionally engaged with his subject, the
prints are empowered to incite a variety of different reactions from the viewer. These may include
surprise, pity, curiosity or good-humoured enjoyment. The ultimate impact of the prints therefore
hinges on the way in which Bunbury joins together a series of strikingly disparate elements. The
prints may be perceived by alternative audiences as comic visual confections, or as realistic
portrayals of actual scenes. Additionally, they contain a partially concealed examination of topics
marked and animated by a strong sense of human interest in the form of documentary recording
or reportage.
Bunbury’s prints were undoubtedly formulaic, but his designs possessed a unique strength and
visual impact due precisely to their innate simplicity. Contemporary audiences responded most
positively to forms of graphic art that were easily read and simply digested and this meant that
Bunbury’s images were immediately popular and also remained relevant to a variety of social
audiences for an extended period of time. This form of universally popular art was closely linked
with the rise of the enthusiastic amateur artist and Bunbury was ideally placed to capitalise on this
trend. Bunbury’s self-confident and thought-provoking work was praised and held up as an ideal
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by the all-powerful social elite who dictated the form and function of English culture at the end of
the eighteenth century. Their positive reaction initiated wider public attention and ensured that
Bunbury retained a charmed artistic reputation created and maintained by the impact of his early
French drawings. Bunbury’s role as an artistic spokesman for his social class did not require him
to establish or change opinions, nor did it entail open flag-waving propaganda. Instead, he was
encouraged to provide entertainment in the form of amusing graphic art that detailed England’s
complex love-hate relationship and fascination with France.
The key to the immediate and lasting popularity of these early French prints was Bunbury’s sense
of humanity and his enthusiasm for detail. These modest talents were then allied with a ready
ability to access the contemporary appetite for ‘marketable xenophobia’. Prints of this kind
blended the reassuringly familiar with the fashionable cutting edge and were consequently
endowed with an almost indefinite shelf life. Once Bunbury had established the various
characters and containing framework for his prints, he used them as a successful artistic formula
again and again. Bunbury’s reputation was therefore built upon the creation and manipulation of
a unique brand of highly saleable anti-French entertainment in a print format. These seemingly
simplistic works established both the form and function of Bunbury’s art for the remainder of his
career. The English preoccupation with France stretched through the Napoleonic wars and into
the nineteenth century so that the naïve and youthful sketch impressions made during Bunbury’s
early travels in France were continually relevant and were therefore continually recycled. His
clever and powerfully repetitive designs were reinterpreted at various points throughout his
lifetime by more omniscient, professional artists like Rowlandson, Gillray and Cruikshank. They
extended the life of Bunbury’s images and communicated them to a new generation during the
later stages of the Napoleonic Wars.
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CHAPTER 2
THE TRANSFORMED ENGLISHMAN: THE MACARONI AND THE MAN OF FASHION
Introduction
In this chapter I explore the ways in which Bunbury interpreted and then transcribed elements of
the fashionable world in which he lived into a graphic format. Bunbury’s privileged existence and
his impulse to record the wider social world resulted in the creation of popular prints with a unique
vantage point. I examine a selection of these prints as a context in which to place contemporary
concerns about the rise of the middling classes and the gradual erosion of social distinction.
John Brewer has cited fashionable dress as ‘the most public manifestation of the blurring of class
divisions’ at the end of the eighteenth century. 157 I have therefore used the study of fashion as a
starting point from which to address issues surrounding Bunbury’s position as an artist and
member of a privileged social class. I also use this to interpret the way in which he subsequently
approached the representation of society as a whole. A discussion of the abstract concept and
application of the term ‘fashion’ will then be followed by a study of the brief but important cultural
phenomenon of the Macaroni. I argue that Bunbury was one of the first artists to capitalise on the
representation of these individuals as an expression of upper class self-confidence and social
energy.
As a privileged member of society, Bunbury was intimately involved in the detailed portrayal of its
inner circle and I argue that while his work in this genre is light hearted, it also offers a window
onto wider social concerns, as well as an insight into Bunbury’s own character and motivation. I
extend an analysis of Bunbury’s position of alternating detachment and belonging within the
safety of the Macaroni elite into an examination of his treatment of social mixture. I argue that
Bunbury’s depiction of a site of fashionable resort and social blending in the form of the London
Park is characterised by a more traditional sense of artistic detachment. I suggest that the
production of art that is smoothly decorative represents Bunbury’s acknowledgment of belonging
to a certain social group, while it also illuminates his views of social mixture. While this selection
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of Bunbury’s prints were produced between 1771 and 1783, his attitudes towards society and
towards his position as an artist remain basically unchanged. I provide a close reading of
representative examples of Bunbury’s artwork in each section of this chapter.
The fashionable world
If fashion is taken to mean not just physical items of clothing, but all forms of consumer products
as well as modes of seeing and behaviour, then ‘fashion’ in late eighteenth century England was
gradually transformed into a highly complex language of social distinction. Fernand Braudel has
noted the importance of fashion as a primary marker for the general temperament of an age,
seeing it as integral to the reading of an historical period: ‘Costume is a language. It is no more
misleading than the graphs drawn by demographers and price historians’.158 Diana Donald has
gone further and called fashion at the end of the eighteenth century a ‘new kind of caste system
[…] that divided not the old aristocracy from the newly enriched, but the fashionable from the
unfashionable’.159 In this way, the coveted title of ‘fashionable’, or being ‘in fashion’, was simply
another way of distinguishing social class. ‘Being in fashion’ depended primarily upon
possessing the capital required to purchase expensive fabric and accessories, and to be
prepared to spend even more to modify, update and replace these original purchases.
To keep up with changes in modes of dress, it was vital to obtain the most current fashion news.
This hinged upon having or obtaining access to certain kinds of information, including fashion
news in the form of newspaper advertisements, prints in ladies’ magazines, individual and first
hand accounts of court and metropolitan styles, and even fashion dolls. 160 As John Brewer has
illustrated, ‘a process of ever widening social diffusion was spreading the ability to follow the
latest of fashions’.161 Entrepreneurs were also beginning to think about the best ways in which to
157
McKendrick, Brewer and Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society, 53.
See Fernand Braudel, Capitalism and Material Life,1400-1800, trans. Miriam Kochan (New York: Harper & Row, 1973).
Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III, 85.
160
For discussions of the fashion doll see Mackie, Market a la mode: Fashion, Commodity and Gender in The Tatler and
The Spectator, 92, 94.
161
McKendrick, Brewer and Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society, 95.
158
159
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market fashion for an increasingly product-hungry consumer base. These strategies were
premised on the tenets of exclusivity and dispersion:
To make [products] fashionable, they needed to be dispersed as widely as possible to
make them sell. The arrival of the fashion leaders back from the London season
[October – April] with the latest news from the capital was the signal for provincial
England of what was in fashion. Just as newspapers spread the word of how an
exclusive new fashion idea had been received in the capital, so those who had actually
seen it or better still bought it, could proudly display or excitedly describe its novelty and
its social impact.162
John Brewer has described the English aristocracy as a ‘small, interconnected, gossip-ridden
world’. However, certain members of this narrow world believed that they helped to set and
maintain the standards for particular types of fashion. Once an idea became current and was
encouraged by manufacturers and trendsetters, the example of the aristocratic trendsetters was
quickly followed by other classes. Fashions spread incredibly rapidly and they also spread
downwards. The nature of fashion was extremely complex. Depending upon the class of its
commentators, fashion was seen as both a liberating expression of individuality and deeply
subversive of traditional social distinctions. Exuberant young members of the aristocracy, like the
Duchess of Devonshire, popularised fashions for everything from military-styled clothing for
women, to Wedgwood flower pots. But fashion was also regarded as a dangerous force, capable
of fracturing known hierarchical groupings, as Diana Donald has noted: ‘Although particular
fashions might be associated with individual members of the aristocracy, fashion itself was […]
perceived as a phenomenon that dissolved traditional hierarchy’.163 Thus, while fashion was the
product of a series of supposedly ‘free’ operations, including what Erin Mackie identifies as
‘corporate and media enterprise’, these highlighted both its accessibility and its exclusivity.
Fashion was then nominally accessible to all and yet its adoption involved a certain measure of
individual choice. This unmediated and ‘personal’ area then constituted a trap into which the
unfashionable were increasingly liable to fall. As Erin Mackie notes, ‘People produce fashion
162
163
McKendrick, Brewer and Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society, 75.
Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III, 85.
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through selective consumption’. In this way, fashion linked individuals to the predominant culture
and its primary objects of consumption, ‘announcing acceptance, challenge or revision of the
limits that culture offers’.164 Fashion was therefore a powerful transformative force, while also
masquerading behind a series of harmless inanimate objects. The generation and proliferation of
consumer products to be purchased and possessed was symptomatic of a wider
commercialisation and exploitation of society. As John Brewer has noted, ‘Clothes were the first
mass consumer products to be noticed by contemporary observers’.165 Fashion was then seen
as an obsession and clothes were objects that could completely take over and consume the
subject, or the spectators involved in this process. In this way, as Erin Mackie has shown,
‘looking is understood as a form of getting, of visual, imaginative acquisition […] having things is
identified with knowing things’.166
Fashion also moved incredibly quickly and this caused a divide between those who were able to
move at a corresponding speed and those for whom change happened too frequently. John
Brewer has commented that contemporaries were startled by the accelerated rate of change
during the 1770s in which fashions altered not annually, but monthly. As the pace increased, not
every one could keep up. In this way, fashion was responsible for creating a ‘cult of the new’ and
the accompanying and heightened desire to adopt every changing nuance of taste and
ornamentation.167 Fashion slavishly reflected the concerns of everyday society, incorporating
overt and subtle references to both events and notable individuals. It also found its own series of
‘levelling’ principles and the followers of the new and the modish became ever hungrier for
innovation and a means of current differentiation through time. John Brewer has discussed the
cynical creation of what were known as ‘miniature manias’ in contemporary society. These
passing fads were:
induced and exploited with consummate skill by the hordes of fashion makers operating
in the sale of hats and gloves, hairstyles and wigs, shoes and stockings. Annual fashion
164
Mackie, Market a la mode: Fashion, Commodity and Gender in The Tatler and The Spectator, xiii.
McKendrick, Brewer and Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society, 53.
166
Mackie, Market a la mode: Fashion, Commodity and Gender in The Tatler and The Spectator, 58.
167
Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English culture in the eighteenth century, 74.
165
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was insufficient to satisfy some markets. Every passing whim and every notable event
(from a victory in battle, to a royal wedding, from the triumph of vaccine to the Montgolfier
brothers balloon exploits) was gleefully pounced upon and incorporated into the
ephemeral designs of high fashion.168
Fashion therefore incorporated and assimilated contemporary events, translating them into highly
specialised and symbolic elements of styling. This provided an important method of signposting
‘currency’ and underlined the inescapable hierarchy attached to certain types of clothing and
accessory. By exploiting the unbridled desire for characteristic novelty, fashion makers ensured a
continued battle for consumption and assimilation among a specialised audience that fought to
stay abreast of change. In this way, the goal posts of ‘belonging’ were continually shifting, so that
the means of distinguishing those who were fashionable from those who were unfashionable
changed with alarming speed. Fashion was therefore a form of elaborate in-joke, both on the part
of the men who cleverly shaped and marketed it, as well as the privileged celebrity figures that
played at setting its various limits. Fashion temporarily disguised, but also ultimately exposed
those who were not qualified, either socially or financially, to follow its dictates. It was therefore
symptomatic of a collective mentality and a desire to belong, while also revealing the individual
pretensions of those wishing to play by its rules. Fashion touched every aspect of life, from
spiritual health to the physical manifestation of manners and posture. As Fernand Braudel has
shown, ‘fashion does not only govern clothing […] it governs ideas as much as costume, the
current phrase as much as the coquettish gesture, the manner of receiving at table, the care
taken in sealing a letter’.169 Taken together, these things constituted the audience’s perception of
what constituted the approximation of a person of rank and fashion. In this way, clothing became
the form of visual ranking par excellence.
People […] are generally honoured according to their Clothes […] from the richness of
them we judge their Wealth […] It is this which encourages every Body, who is conscious
of his little Merit, if he is any ways able, to wear Clothes above his Rank.170
168
McKendrick, Brewer and Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer, 63.
Fernand Braudel, The Structures of Everyday Life: The Limits of the Possible, Vol. I of Civilisation and Capitalisation,
Fifteenth to Eighteenth Century, trans. Sian Reynolds (New York: Perennial Library, Harper & Row, 1985), 328.
170
Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of The Bees; or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits, ed. by F. B. Kaye. (Oxford, 1924), I,
127.
169
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Fashion also involved a long-running debate that centred on a form of distinction between
perceived merit and reality, much in the manner of the moral tale ‘the Emperor’s new clothes’ in
which a gross form of artifice is colluded with and perpetuated by the weak and gullible. 171 The
debate was significantly affected by the aggressive marketing of fashion on the part of clever
entrepreneurs who were perfectly attuned to the whims of fashion leaders. Individuals like Josiah
Wedgwood stood to gain a great deal from offensive action carried out among the contemporary
audience for his products. In 1779, he admitted honestly that for him, ‘Fashion’ was ‘infinitely
superior to merit in many respects’.172 Rather than stressing the inherent value of his products,
Wedgwood identified patrons and sponsors in order to reinforce that appeal. Men like Wedgwood
and his partner Boulton created a marketing strategy for their products that hinged upon an acute
awareness of the power of social emulation - and the emulative spending that accompanied it. 173
John Brewer has noted that ‘a product made fashionable at the apex of the social pyramid would
rapidly spread through the closely packed layers of English society to the wider social base where
the mass market […] was to be found’. In this way, Wedgwood and other purveyors of
fashionable goods harnessed the power of social division to increase their marketing impact.
What was true of pottery was also true of clothing, accessories and all other forms of fashionable
consumer goods:
The demand for this sd. Creamcolour, alias Queensware […] still increases. It is really
amazing how rapidly the use of it has spread over the whole Globe, and how universally
it is liked. How much of this general use, & estimation, is owing to the mode of its
introduction - & how much to its real utility and beauty? are questions in which we may be
a good deal interested for the government of our future Conduct. […] if a Royal, or Noble
introduction be as necessary to the sale of an Article of Luxury, as real Elegance and
beauty, then the Manufacturer […] will bestow as much pains, & expence too, in gaining
the former of these advantages, as he wo.d. in bestowing the latter. 174
Other commentators worried about the negative effects of fashion on society at large, with its
inherent sponsorship of all forms of theatrical disguise. While including individual plates and
171
I use this idea as an example of the power of communal and communicable taste.
Wedgwood, writing to his business partner, Boulton. WMSS. E. 18898-6. J.W. to T.B. 19 Jun 1779.
‘Like Wedgwood, Boulton sought aristocratic patronage to give a lead to the rest of society in the confident knowledge
that social emulation would ensure emulative spending in the rest of society’. McKendrick, Brewer and Plumb, The Birth
of a Consumer Society, 71.
174
Wedgwood, writing to his business partner, Boulton. WMSS. E. 18167-25. J.W. to T.B. 17 Sept. 1767.
172
173
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discussions of the latest fashions amongst its pages, publications aimed at ‘ladies’ descanted on
the dangers of this form of disguise and the resulting loss of social order and clarity. A
commonplace thought was that ‘The world is now nothing but a masquerade, wherein everyone
wears, not the dress that will suit her character, but the most pleasing to her fancy, and under
which she thinks she shall be best concealed’.175 In this way, fashion was seen not as an
exuberant expression of personal taste and individuality, but as a comment upon the
concealment of an essentially true (or ugly) nature. More than this, identity was seen as
something to be purchased and, like a garment, to be put on and taken off at will. No longer
inherent, individual nature became a material form of ‘distinction’ only. Consequently, the
followers of fashion were no more substantial than hollow, wooden puppets:
There are Numbers of Beings in about this Metropolitan who have no other identical
Existence than what the Taylor, Milliner and Perriwig-Maker bestow upon them: Strip
them of these Distinctions, and they are quite a different Species of Beings; have no
more Relation to their dressed selves than they have to the great Mogul, and are as
insignificant in Society as Punch, deprived of his moving wires and hung upon a Peg. 176
The ‘puppets’ who owed their very existence to fashion were also seen to actively invite and
encourage the gaze of others, involving themselves in a complicated and circular form of
observation and evaluation. The primacy of the visual was extended into an acknowledgment of
the accumulative nature of the gaze. Erin Mackie has discussed how the eighteenth century
‘collectors’ and connoisseurs of consumer goods were subject to a form of visual or ocular
seduction. A complex relationship then developed between the actively consuming spectator and
the passive object of his or her desire. By falsely associating certain objects with the fulfilment of
a specific desire - for example to be seen as fashionable, or a leader of fashion - consumers
began a process which led ultimately to the fracturing of human identity. Erin Mackie goes on to
underline this movement: ‘as they internalise the objects of their consuming power, people are at
risk not only of falsifying their desires and their values but also of losing their identities. Locating
175
176
The Lady’s Magazine, Vol. IV (1773), 584-7.
Richard Campbell, The London Tradesman (1747), 191.
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meaning in things, people strive to become them’.177 In many cases, such potentially subversive
tendencies were associated with a contrast between good and evil, rural simplicity and urban
sophistication. A whole genre of satirical prints was dedicated to the dramatic country
‘homecoming’ of exaggeratedly modish and affected sons and daughters, corrupted by the
metropolitan ‘disease’ of fashion. Excellent examples include a pair of drawings by Grimm,
published by the print seller Carrington Bowles from his shop at 60, St. Paul’s Churchyard in
c.1770. Well-a-day! Is this my son Tom! and Be not amaz’d dear mother, it is indeed your
daughter Anne! communicate the shock and surprise felt by parents encountering offspring made
utterly unrecognisable by the adoption of certain fashionable accoutrements. 178 30, 31
Caricatures in the 1770s concentrated on fashion as a negative form of social aspiration and this
was made abundantly clear in a series of highly developed moral satires. The most extreme of
these emphasised the fact that the pursuit of fashion (as one of the ‘worldly pleasures’) was
wholly incompatible with religion and a healthy spiritual life. Prints like Dighton’s engraving Life
and Death contrasted, or An Essay on Woman published in 1784 depict a woman split into two
halves. One side is fashionably dressed, while the other is an unadorned skeleton, surrounded
by memento mori.179 While fashion might have provided a partial cover for a lack of ‘natural’
attributes and social rank, it was exposed in written and graphic art as an essentially pointless
and laughable pursuit. The moralists and the social commentators had a vested interest in
highlighting these negative aspects in the preservation of the status quo and the balance of
power. Diana Donald has noted that ‘however effective the disguise of dress may have been in
reality, the satirist needed to emphasise the brashness and absurdity of the arriviste’.180 In this
way, it was hoped that the presumptions of the social imposter would be exposed while their
correspondingly ‘true’ and socially inferior natures were laid bare for all to see. In many cases the
compulsive desire for this form of dramatic revelation resulted in exaggerated images which lost
177
Mackie, Market a la mode: Fashion, Commodity and Gender in The Tatler and The Spectator, 66.
Is this my son Tom, published by Sayer & Bennett in 1774 is a good, representative print of this wide-ranging and
prolific genre of social commentary.
179
Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century, 73.
180
Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III, 83.
178
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their internal charge through their grossness. It took more subtle artistic handling to draw
attention to what was often articulated, but seldom given credible and concrete form.
The Macaroni
All of the debates concerning fashion were polarised in the contemporary treatment of the
Macaroni figure from c.1771 to 1774. The craze for all things Macaroni began amongst the most
privileged members of the aristocracy, but elements of the fashion also permeated down into all
levels of society. While the Macaroni was almost exclusively identified with a small clique or
group of individuals, contemporary observers perceived the craze as symptomatic of a worrying
and much wider tendency to credit fashion with transformative properties. The pursuit of fashion
for its own sake was seen as frivolous, and because the derivative of Macaroni fashion was
foreign, it was then associated with effeminacy and a subversion of all masculine (and inherently
English) qualities. For those worried about the spiritual health and the corporeal robustness of
the nation, especially when threatened with war abroad, Macaronis came to be seen as the
concrete form of a series of abstract principles, including amorality and asexuality made flesh.
The natural order was subverted by such adherence to foreign taste, and Macaronis were
simultaneously feared as the harbingers of a spiritual Armageddon, and dismissed and derided
as puppets, ornaments and lap dogs.
The Macaroni craze was first ‘invented’ in the 1760s, but the fashion did not manifest itself in
earnest until the first years of the next decade. The ‘golden age’ of the Macaroni lasted from
1770 to 1772, so that by 1776, Frances Burney could announce that the word had become
unfashionable and was no longer ‘the ton’. George Paston notes that:
the type seems to have been originated by a number of young men of fashion, who had
made the grand tour and learnt to eat maccaroni at Naples. Having acquired the habit of
calling everything that was elegant or uncommon after the national dish of Italy, the
young travellers judged that the title of Maccaroni was very applicable to a clever fellow,
and accordingly, to distinguish themselves as such they instituted a coterie under this
denomination, the members of which were supposed to be the standards of taste in polite
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learning, the fine arts, and the genteel sciences, and fashion soon became an object of
their attention.181
To herald the social ‘arrival’ of this new sect, a Macaroni and Theatrical Magazine was
established in 1772 and this included ‘portraits and brief memoirs’ of the more notorious of its
members. This clever mouthpiece of the ultra-fashionable noted later that year that Macaronis
were seen as ‘the younger and gayer sort of our nobility and gentry, who at the same time that
they gave into the business of eating went equally into the extravagance of dress’.182 The fact
that eating and fashion are linked together here is interesting. While the amalgamation of food
and clothing emphasises the sociable and original stimulus behind Macaronism, it also highlights
a debate that revolves around physical health and an internal/external perception of well being.
The body itself becomes the focus for debate as nourishment is put into it, while clothes are
draped over it. Fashion is then seen as a gross perversion of use value, working against the
body as the powerhouse of the spirit.
Contemporaries noted that the Macaronis’ slavish worship of fashion was paradoxically their only
distinguishing feature, while they also recorded with growing alarm the rapidity of its
dissemination through society. A contemporary wrote: ‘the infection at St James’s was soon
caught in the City, and we now have Macaronis of every denomination, from the Colonel of the
Trained Bands down to the errand boy’.183 The hint of social danger was subsequently couched
in descriptions that sought to belittle and undermine the sway of fashion by emphasising its utterly
laughable nature. According to one observer, the Macaroni subverted the comfortable reality of
practical and sober male attire. Instead, utility was overthrown in favour of superfluous
decoration and a taste for the uncomfortable, the colourful and the downright bizarre:
They make indeed a most ridiculous figure, with hats of an inch in brim that do not cover
the head, with about two pounds of fictitious hair, formed into what is called a club,
hanging down their shoulders as white as a barber’s sack; their coat sleeves are so tight
they can with much difficulty get their arms through their cuffs; which are about an inch
181
George Paston, Social Caricature in the Eighteenth Century (London: Methuen, 1905), 17.
Macaroni and Theatrical Magazine, October 1772.
183
An unattributed quote, cited in Paston, Social Caricature in the Eighteenth Century, 18.
182
98
deep, and their shirt-sleeves, without plaits, are pulled over a piece of Trolly lace. Their
legs are at times covered with all the colours of the rainbow; even flesh-coloured and
green silk stockings are not excluded. The shoes are scarce slippers, and the buckles
within an inch of the toe.184
The sociable politician Charles James Fox achieved notoriety as one of the chief Macaronis,
following his return from the Grand Tour in 1768. In line with the group’s characteristic desire to
stand out from the crowd, he sported an abundance of bright blue hair powder and wore
characteristic red-heeled shoes. Following his brother’s lead, Stephen Fox - Bunbury’s friend and
travelling partner - also dressed in a similarly individual and flamboyant manner. In this way,
young members of the aristocracy advertised their presence, their superior wealth, their elite
cultural credentials and their ability to spend money in a meaningless manner by choosing to
wear uniquely styled garments possessing no use value. This was part of an elaborate game of
‘belonging’ which was nevertheless highly socially exclusive. The members of the Macaroni
fraternity all came from similarly privileged backgrounds; all of them had visited Italy and all were
of comparable ages. The brightest young politicians, connoisseurs, men of learning, art and
science all dabbled briefly in this exuberant outburst of social solidarity. Despite the undoubted
intellectual prowess of those who identified themselves as Macaronis, commentators emphasised
instead the affected nonchalance and the exaggerated mannerisms that accompanied their
outrageous fashion exteriors. The Universal Magazine offered an interesting and penetrating
insight into the supposed character, or more properly the vapidity and lack of real personality, of
the typical Macaroni:
He is the sworn foe of all learning, and even sets orthography at defiance; for all learned
fellows who can spell or write sense, are either queer dogs or poor fellows. And yet the
creature affects some of the fine arts. He attends at auctions where he picks up the
names of painters, and vomits them forth on all occasions. He affects a rapturous taste
for music and is continually humming in a Piano. If you see him at the theatre, he will
scarcely stir without his opera glass, which he will thrust into a lady’s face, and then
simper, and be ‘pruddigisly entertenn’d’ with her confusion. He laughs at religion,
because it is too rational a pleasure for him to conceive. He hates all drinking - except
tea and posset – and detests those rude and nasty fellows who drink the generous grape,
and swallow punch and the fumes of tobacco.185
184
An unattributed quote, cited in Paston, Social Caricature in the Eighteenth Century, 18.
99
The Macaroni was therefore seen as spiritually hollow, while his chosen way of life was
categorised as correspondingly meaningless, if not morally corrupt. The primary activity of the
Macaroni was ‘gaming for high stakes’ and an earlier incarnation of the Macaroni brotherhood
had formed a subscription table at Almack’s in 1764. It was said that male and female Macaronis
were the ‘onlie begetters’ of Almack’s, and Horace Walpole commented tartly on the grand scale
of play in 1770: ‘The gaming at Almack’s [in Pall Mall] which has taken the pas of White’s, is
worthy the decline of the empire, or commonwealth, which you please’.186 Macaronis led hugely
sociable lives and operated at the very heart of fashionable society. They were seen parading
their unusual clothes and affected manners at plays and public concerts, as well as the more
exclusive masquerades at the Pantheon, and the entertainments organised by Mrs. Cornelys at
Carlisle House.
Other contemporary observers underlined the amorality involved in such a pursuit of pleasure for
pleasure’s sake, identifying this kind of moral bankruptcy with an active perversion of nature: ‘The
life of a macaroni is a perfect vacuum. His words are all wind, his actions are all flash, and his
thoughts (if he has any) are all phantasms. He eats, he drinks, he sleeps, he walks, he talks, it is
true, but in a manner totally different from all mankind’. 187 In this way, the Macaroni was cast as
a completely unnatural and ‘gender non-specific’ entity. The following of unbridled desires and
the whims of fashion led to a gradual perversion of the Macaroni’s ‘true’ nature, transforming him
into a zombie-like creature devoid of human feeling. Fashion was then directly and indirectly
responsible for the creation of a species of monster, incapable of meaningful articulation and
unable to communicate with his fellow man. The Macaroni was divorced from all regular society,
except that provided by his own kind. He had both willed and condemned himself to status as the
shunned and pitied ‘other’.
185
Paston, Social Caricature in the Eighteenth Century (London: Methuen, 1905), 18.
See Mary Dorothy George, Hogarth to Cruikshank: Social Change in Graphic Satire (London: The Penguin Press,
1967), 59, 61.
187
An unattributed ‘contemporary view’ quoted on www.bbc.co.uk/education/beyond/factsheets/makhist – ‘Macaronis’, 4
March 2006.
186
100
Contemporary observers also emphasised the asexuality of the Macaroni as fashion’s unnatural
progeny: ‘There is indeed a kind of animal, neither male nor female, a thing of the neuter gender,
lately started up amongst us […] It is called a Macaroni. It talks without meaning, it smiles without
pleasantry, it rides without exercise, it wenches without passion’.188 Bunbury’s school friend and
brother-in-law, Charles Horneck (1751-1804) was associated with this form of ‘neutered’ creature
and was one of the first Macaronis to be caricatured in 1771. A contemporary observer
commented (seemingly without prejudice) on the presence of Charles and the rest of the Horneck
family at a Pantheon masquerade. They made ‘a charming group, two beautiful sisters and their
smart brother, the captain in lace, all in French dancers’ dresses of the same cut and fashion;
looking […] notwithstanding the sex of one of the group, like the three graces’.189 Charles
Horneck was not alone in his extreme adoption of Macaroni fashion. His contemporary, Robert
Pitt, sported extravagant Macaroni clothing that invited comment and intense observation from
others during a visit to St. James’s Park:
He displayed peculiar taste in dress, though carried to excess in point of fashion, soon
becoming the envy of all the young men of his day. I was one morning walking arm in
arm with him in St. James’s park, his dress then being a white coat, cut in the extremity of
the ton, lined with a Garter blue satin, edged with ermine, and ornamented with rich silver
frogs; waistcoat and breeches of the same blue satin, trimmed with silver twist a la
Hussar, and ermine edges. In our walk we met young Horneck, then Bob’s counterpart
both as to person and age, who had just become an ensign in the Guards. Horneck,
struck with the figure and appearance of my companion, when abreast of us, stopped
and stared rather rudely. Whereupon Pitt, turning towards him, said to me, ‘Look,
William! There is a coxcomb that cannot bear a competitor, jealous as the devil and
envious too!’ accompanying his remark by a peculiarly provoking laugh that was natural
to him. Horneck coloured deeply, seemed mortified, but said not a word and went on his
way.190
As men like Charles Horneck and Robert Pitt indulged themselves in the extremes of Macaroni
fashion, they were both pitied and ridiculed in equal measure by their more soberly dressed
contemporaries.191 Observers felt threatened by excessive male attention to fashion, and
188
Hibbert, The Grand Tour (London: Hamlyn, 1974), 234.
Charles Robert Leslie and Tom Taylor, The Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Quoted on
www.bbc.co.uk/education/beyond/factsheets/makhist Macaronis, 4 March 2006. Charles Horneck’s name was linked to
the diplomat Chevalier d’Eon who (falsely) declared that he was a woman in 1776.
190
See Alfred Spencer (ed.) Memoirs of William Hickey (London: Huret & Blackett, 1948).
191
One commentator wrote of Macaronis with undisguised venom: ‘the poor thing is very harmless. He would make a
good ladies lapdog, would cut a pretty ridiculous figure on a chimneypiece between two urns, or in some nick, by way of a
189
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represented it as a perversion of nature as well as the manifestation of dangerously ‘foreign’
tendencies.192 32 Diana Donald has noted that the ideal English gentleman was created in direct
contrast and opposition to the French fop whose bearing and behaviour represented a perversion
of the ‘masculine qualities of rationality and control of passion, the principles of virtue and religion
befitting the future English senator’.193
Mary and Matthew Darly were the first print sellers to exploit the new rage for prints that
represented the exotic and yet strangely familiar creature, the Macaroni. From their shop in 39
Strand, they advertised for the sketches of amateur artists to be translated into copper plate
etchings for sale to a wider print market. It is interesting to note that the Darlys approached the
trade in Macaroni prints through advertisement, rather than producing the entire stock of plates
themselves, or through engravers already employed by them. Their advertisement made it clear
that they were targeting the genteel amateur and that the activity of drawing one’s friends was
simply an entertaining and ‘diverting’ pastime. The language used by the Darlys cleverly
emphasised the high value of such prints for ‘private amusement’, rather than stressing their
worth in terms of a financial arrangement in order to encourage ‘polite’ involvement:
Sketches or Hints Sent by Post paid will have due Honour shewn them […] Gentlemen
and Ladies may have Copper plates prepared and varnished for etching. Ladies to
whom the fumes of aqua fortis is noxious may have their plates carefully bit […] Ladies
and Gentlemen sending their designs may have them carefully etched and printed for
their own private amusement, or if for publishing, shall have every return and
acknowledgement for any comic design. Descriptions for hints in writing […] shall have
due Honour shewn them and be Immediately Drawn and Executed.194
Caricature in general was discussed and described in exactly the same manner. 195 Mary Darly’s
earlier A Book of Caricatures (c.1762) had noted that it provided a cathartic experience and a
bust. I shall always be ready with my correcting whip, to drive such noxious vermin away, from the society of mankind’.
quoted on www.bbc.co.uk/education/beyond/factsheets/makhist – ‘Macaronis’, 4 March 2006.
192
See Bunbury’s Que je suis enchante de vous voir! (c.1769-70), BM 4754.
193
Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III, 81.
194
Mary Darly, A Book of Caricaturas on 60 Copper Plates with ye Principles of Designing in that Droll and Pleasing
Manner by M. Darly with Sundry Ancient and Modern Examples and Several Well-Known Caricaturas (c.1762). British
Library.
195
Bunbury’s acquaintance Captain Francis Grose (1731-91) published a book entitled Rules for Drawing Caricaturas:
With an Essay on Comic Painting (1788).
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‘diverting species of designing that will certainly keep those that practice it out of the hipps or
vapours’.
The Darlys therefore capitalised upon and tapped into a market whose popularity was both
manufactured by and perpetuated for its most privileged members. As John Brewer has
commented ‘The appreciative amateur, who did not profit from culture, was given pride of place
over the professional artist, whose status was compromised by his using art to make a living, by
sullying good taste with foul Mammon’.196 There was also a strong narcissistic desire on the part
of the aristocratic members of the fashionable Macaroni club to view images of themselves and to
have these images reproduced for public as well as private consumption. Matthew Darly later
collated these designs and published them as the popular 5 volume collection entitled Macaronis,
Characters and Caricaturas […] in a Series of Drol Prints Consisting of Heads, Conversations
and Satires upon the Follies of the Age. Designed by several Ladies, Gentlemen and the most
humorous Artists.197 The aristocratic audience for Macaroni prints then colluded in the longevity
of the Macaroni craze and its prolonged exposure to the public. In 1773, the Darly’s held an
exhibition of the 233 drawings submitted by amateurs for these type of prints, listing 106 as being
by ‘Gentlemen’, 73 by ‘Ladies’ and 54 by ‘Artists’. Each one was anonymous, submitted by those
who were careful to protect both their gender and their privileged social status.198
The popularity of the Macaroni craze was therefore spread almost entirely by the work of wellconnected amateurs. The enterprising Darlys whose shop became synonymous with the
business of Macaroni ‘marketing’ published their work in large numbers. A representative piece
that includes the site of the Darly’s shop was Topham’s engraving entitled The Macaroni Print
Shop, published on 14 July 1772. 33 The print is entirely filled by a depiction of the shop front of
39 the Strand, including two large bay windows with a glazed door between them. While the
196
Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English culture in the eighteenth century, 92.
Bunbury’s contributions to Volumes 1 and 5 may be viewed in the British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings.
For a discussion on the allowance made for female caricaturists, see Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in
the Reign of George III, 17. Lady Diana Beauclerk (nee Spencer) was a keen amateur artist and her friend Horace
Walpole was an avid collector of her work. He also collected drawings by Anne Conway (Mrs. Damer) and other
fashionable and well-connected ladies.
197
198
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entrance to the shop remains bare, every other pane of glass is filled with recognisable,
contemporary caricature prints, the majority of which depict Macaronis. Interestingly, the figures
gathered outside the shop to gaze at the prints represent a large cross-section of society, and
range from men of fashion and the professions, to business and the trades. Only those who
recognise themselves in the prints are discomposed, like the dainty Macaroni on the far left
whose fluttering fingers display an excess of shocked emotion.
It is significant that the reaction of the ragged man who occupies the central-right position is the
most extreme. He is so enthralled by the prints and laughs so much at a depiction of perverted
fashion (ladies’ towering hairstyles in this case) that he spills the contents of the pot in his hand.
Because he is wholly outside the fashionable world, he is able to recognise its ridiculous
shallowness. While these prints convey a ‘universal’ and supposedly uncomplicated language,
there is also the sense that within this particular print the ragged man is pitied precisely because
he is poor and shabbily dressed. Despite his good humour, he remains an outsider unable to
enter into the real ‘joke’. Unlike the other spectators, he will never experience either the pleasure
or the horror of recognising his own picture in the window. The poor man remains anonymous
and ultimately unrecorded in prints of this kind. 199
Significantly, one of the first artists to capitalise on the Macaroni craze was Bunbury. Bunbury’s
Macaroni prints were published only around ten months after his readmittance to University and
the triumph of his first Royal Academy work La Cuisine de la Poste on 1st February 1771. His
images were advertised by word of mouth amongst his many friends, and as desirable consumer
objects they were also pasted in the windows or exhibited inside carefully chosen print shops with
a selection of other fashionable new prints. Bunbury’s works were certainly deemed successful
enough to warrant the commissioning of a Macaroni ‘series’ and it is probable that his excellent
social connections, as well as the general vanity of his friends, ensured the popularity of his work
For representations of print shops, see Robert Dighton’s A Real Scene in St. Paul’s Church Yard (1783), a mezzotint
published by Carrington Bowles, John Raphael Smith’s Miss Macaroni and her gallant at a Print Shop (1773), a mezzotint
published by J. Bowles and also Gillray’s Very Slippy Weather (1808), among others.
199
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in this genre. Members of other social classes were attracted to purchase Bunbury’s prints as a
means of keeping up with and buying into current fashions. For some, these prints also
represented a vicarious means of belonging to an exclusive social grouping whose way of life and
thinking they wished to emulate.
Bunbury’s sketch entitled The Martial Macaroni (Charles Horneck) pre-dates others of this genre
by several months and was published by the Darlys on or around 13 November 1771. 34 It
appeared at the same time as other representative Macaroni prints such as the anonymous and
bizarre My Lord Tip Toe. Just Arrived from Monkey Land and a delicate depiction of The Lilly
Macaroni.200 Bunbury’s print depicts a fragile and finely dressed young man, sporting a
substantial queue of hair topped by a dainty hat. He glides along with his arms lightly folded over
a cane and seems wholly absorbed in observing what is going on around him. This informal
sketch of Bunbury’s fashionable friend was then followed by what may have been conceived of as
an entire ‘series’ of Macaroni prints by Bunbury. These were published in conjunction with the
engraver and print seller James Bretherton on 29 March 1772 and sold from his shop in 134 New
Bond Street. The St. James’s Macaroni, The Full-Blown Macaroni and The Fish Street Macaroni
are all scratchily vibrant depictions of various Macaroni ‘types’.201
The St. James’s Macaroni (1772)
The St. James’s Macaroni is a smugly smiling and very upright figure. 35 He is seen in profile
and stands with his hands in his pockets, a three-cornered hat tucked under his arm and with one
foot pointing daintily outwards. The large nosegay pinned to his jacket, the long queue of hair
and the low-slung sword all announce his overtly fashionable Macaroni credentials. The
overwhelming impression is one of self-contained aloofness and of a confident stylishness and
wealth. The fashionable area of St. James’s was the nominal ‘birth place’ and haunt of the
Macaroni, making this an archetypal image and the representation par excellence of the Macaroni
200
In many cases, each print represented a contemporary public figure. The Fly Catching Macaroni (published by Darly,
13 November 1771) was a likeness of Sir Joseph Banks.
201
The St James’s Macaroni andThe Fish Street Macaroni, The Full Blown Macaroni and The Houndsditch Macaroni were
all published on 29 March 1772 by James Bretherton, 132 New Bond Street. BM 4712, 4713, 4714, 4715.
105
figure as he really is. There is a sense that this individual was personally known to Bunbury and
may have been one of his close friends or associates. The portrayal is gentle and teasing and
exposes the unique bearing and mannerisms of a trueborn Macaroni. For those wishing to
emulate the ultra-fashionable and to ‘buy into’ another social group, there is the added frisson
that this may be a recognisable portrait of an aristocratic individual.
The Full Blown Macaroni (1772)
In contrast, The Full-Blown Macaroni and The Fish Street Macaroni illustrate two completely
different characters and these approximate to two very distinct social types. The Full-Blown
Macaroni depicts a corpulent and hurrying individual, loaded down with a variety of different
‘accessories’. 36 A full-length sword is attached to his side while he holds a dark tricorn hat in
one hand and strides forward with a long cane gripped in the other hand. Again seen in profile,
this man has fleshy lips, cheeks and jowls, and wears a surprised look that is emphasised by his
raised eyebrows and wide-open eyes. Despite the difference in stature to The St. James’s
Macaroni, this gentleman too wears the trademark Macaroni wig, the long jacket and the
waistcoat adorned with an ample nosegay. He is resolutely self-possessed and walks
purposefully along, seemingly completely at ease with his fashionable clothing, despite his middle
age and portly figure.
Bunbury’s print captures an individual in the act of movement and emphasises the fact that
elements of Macaroni dress constituted a ‘known’ fashionable formula. It is obvious that this man
too wishes to be thought of as undeniably current in his dress and taste and, like the St. James’s
Macaroni, he is obviously well-bred. However, while he may identify himself with other
Macaronis, Bunbury hints that he is also something of a figure of fun. The title ‘full-blown’ refers
to his well-fed figure and the fact that he does not quite fit in with the lean, dashing and youthful
Macaroni stereotype. In this way Bunbury draws attention to the difference between the image
(what the man thinks of himself and how he believes that he appears to others) and the reality
(that he is ‘full-blown’ and past his best). Fashion cannot be made to ‘fit’ everybody and these
106
forms of disguise are not always successful. Despite this, Bunbury’s print is characterised by a
gentle humour and a sense of real energy. This is a Macaroni who is happily unconscious of his
fashionable failings. As an archetypal Everyman figure he is linked directly to those individuals
who attempt to follow fashion - and who appear mildly ridiculous as a result.
The Fish Street Macaroni (1772)
Bunbury’s print entitled The Fish Street Macaroni underlines the fact that cutting-edge fashion
had begun to filter down the social scale. 37 It is obvious that the individual portrayed here is not
an airy and insubstantial victim of the abstract force of fashion. On the contrary, he is a round
and homely looking, solid English citizen who stands in a confident pose with his legs thrust
apart. He stares directly out at the viewer and this, along with his robust and healthy appearance,
gives the impression that he was drawn by Bunbury ‘from life’. The jolly, smiling figure is cleverly
contrasted with a fashionable costume that includes a long jacket, embroidered waistcoat,
nosegay and sword, completed with a small Macaroni hat perched on top of his large head. In a
repetition of the stance of The St. James’s Macaroni, he also has one hand thrust into his pocket
in order to appear unconsciously and fashionably nonchalant. Interestingly, at first glance this
figure could be the archetype for that supreme incarnation of Englishness, John Bull. The
conflicting visual messages of a sturdy individual clothed in elements of Macaroni styling
therefore temporarily confuse the viewer, causing a ‘double-take’ action that replicates the
experience of the passer-by, or viewer. This may replicate Bunbury’s original reaction in
recording this incredibly vibrant but very un-Macaroni-like figure.
The ‘Fish Street’ location of the print also works against and categorises the figure. Behind him
can be seen a gateway advertising ‘The New Paradise’. The notice continues: ‘No GENTLEMEN
or LADIES to be admitted with NAILS in their SHOES. RECREATION & REFRESHMENT at 6d.
pr HEAD’. In the ironic and hyperbolically named ‘New Paradise’, everything is labelled and
given a price in a reflection of social divisiveness. Bunbury portrays the Fish Street Macaroni as
the proud proprietor of a pleasure garden, created expressly for an urban middle-to-working class
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clientele. 38 As a parody of the more exclusive resorts of Vauxhall Gardens and Ranelagh, even
this atttraction is subject to social regulation and admittance to the ‘Fish Street’ Elysium is
dependent upon the possession of sixpence and the correct footwear. 202 In Bunbury’s print, the
burly entrepreneur is utterly confident in his own piecemeal adoption of the latest Macaroni
fashions as an advertisement of his contemporaneity to potential customers. He is consequently
completely unaware of the fact that he appears foolish in comparison with ‘the real thing’. The
ruddy complexion and solid physical stance of this figure immediately announces his real social
standing and his correct placing amongst the ‘cits’ and rising middle classes. The appearance of
the Fish Street Macaroni therefore throws the addition of fashionable styling off balance and
renders his rudimentary attempts at disguise clumsy and slightly laughable.
However, Bunbury operates as the privileged revealer of ‘true’ identities. Here, he shows that the
correct geographical location is as important as personal bearing and general appearance in
relation to fashion and belonging.203 In this way, the portion of London that incorporated Fish
Street is found to be humorously incompatible with the geographical birthplace of Macaronism,
and consequently the genuine Macaroni and the fashionable and socially privileged ethos that
supported and sustained them. Bunbury’s print is therefore produced expressly for an audience
of ‘real’ Macaronis who, like the poor man in Topham’s print, are able to laugh at the glaringly
‘obvious’ visual and social pretensions of this jolly imposter figure. While this is seen from the
point of view of the all-informed and all-seeing privileged upper class observer capable of
exposing social pretension, Bunbury’s print is not a vicious satire. It is instead good-humoured
and teasing and celebrates the vigorous life of an English ‘Original’.204 39 There is a warm
acknowledgment of this pretended Macaroni’s vibrant individualism and Bunbury’s humanity and
genuine curiosity about character overrides an elite message of social exclusivity. Like his wellconnected counterpart The Full Blown Macaroni, the Fish Street Macaroni is unconscious of the
202
See the archway represented in Mr. Deputy Dumpling and Family (1781), after Robert Dighton, published by
Carrington Bowles.
203
Englishness is seen by some contemporary commentators as a matter primarily of ’place’ rather than ‘race’. See Peter
Ackroyd, Albion: the Origins of the English Imagination (London: Chatto & Windus, 2002).
204
See Bunbury’s prints of local characters, including A Man in a Coat and Hat with a Walking Stick (1773) BM 4762 and
The Inimitable Mr. Moss (1773), both etched and published by James Bretherton.
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fact that his expensive and carefully put-together ‘look’ is incongruous. Instead Bunbury draws
attention to the character’s absorption in a detached world of his own making and this is both
concrete (the location of Fish Street) and psychological (his character and cultural conditioning).
In this way Bunbury records a self-contained existence that cleverly mirrors the fashionable
sentiments of both superiority and ‘removal’ felt by the genuine Macaroni.
Bunbury went on to lightheartedly caricature his friend Stephen Fox, 2 nd Lord Holland, in a print
entitled The Sleeping Maccaroni, Dreaming for the good of his Country, published in June
1772.205 40 However, he and his family did not themselves escape from the rage for light-hearted
caricature. Either Henry or his brother Charles was portrayed as a baker carrying a tray of buns
in The Bun Macaroni published anonymously in October 1772. Interestingly, although
anonymous upper class amateurs produced many of the Macaroni prints, each print was
confidently linked to a particular and well known individual. Thus, The Lilly Macaroni and The Fly
Catching Macaroni were representations of Sir Joseph Banks, while The Turf Macaroni was said
to be a good likeness of the Duke of Grafton.206 This meant that the Macaroni prints formed a
comprehensive gallery of an entire social group. Members of this group were then able to see
and recognise themselves in graphic representations, and also enjoy the fact that their exuberant
and ephemeral way of life was being recorded for posterity. In this way, the creative impulse
behind the Macaroni print genre was both voyeuristic in terms of their love of watching others,
and narcissistic in terms of their love of seeing and watching themselves.
As a young and privileged member of the upper classes, Bunbury was both artistically and
socially qualified to record and to add to the images that constituted the Macaroni genre. He
sketched his friends, but he also drew individuals who were not part of his immediate social circle.
Rather than turning these individuals into bland or ugly stereotypes, as some social caricaturists
did, Bunbury’s humanitarian curiosity instead encouraged him to portray their individuality in the
205
Published by Darly on 4 June November 1772, BM 4648.
Published by Darly on 13 November 1771; engraved by Whipoord and published by Darly on 12 July 1772; unknown
publication details.
206
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most minute detail. He recorded many figures ‘from life’, and in doing so he retained their
autonomy, as well as their individual characters and life force. Bunbury’s Macaroni prints are not
devoid of social comment and this extends to a speculation that certain individuals are
unconscious of their fashionable faux pas. While these figures may fall into the class of the
fashionably misguided, they are certainly not portrayed as either consciously or culpably wicked
or stupid. They are instead depicted as innocents, caught within a fast moving and complex
world of class interplay and cutting-edge fashion. Bunbury acknowledges that he himself is part
of this privileged world, but does so without recourse to a heavy-handed reminder and lessons in
an exclusive cultural elitism. An intense youthful enthusiasm and curiosity about life mark
Bunbury’s Macaroni prints. They are not partisan or political, but combine a sense of human
comedy with a documentary realism and a respect for individual integrity.
The promenade
In 1767 Nathaniel Forster noted that English society was characterised by a desire for emulation
and a lust for all things fashionable. He commented particularly on the fact that it was becoming
increasingly difficult to distinguish between the different classes:
In England, the several ranks of men slide into each other almost imperceptibly, and a
spirit of equality runs through every part of their constitution. Hence arises a strong
emulation in all the several stations and conditions to vie with each other; the perpetual
restless ambition in each of the inferior ranks to raise themselves to the level of those
immediately above them. In such a state as this fashion must have uncontrolled sway.
And a fashionable luxury must spread through it like a contagion.207
Inspired by a universal rage to follow fashion, such an example of liberty and seeming
‘democracy’ was nowhere more recognisable than in places of public recreation. Here, the
impulse to be fashionable and to take part in modish leisure pursuits resulted in the unmediated
mixing of high and low life. London at the end of the eighteenth century abounded in a vast array
of different sites in which a socially disparate clientele could come together to indulge in the
national pastime of leisurely observing others. Some sites remained socially exclusive including
the masquerades and decadent entertainments held by and for the social elite where entry was
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contingent upon personal invitation or recommendation by elected committee. However, public
masquerades attracted thousands of people to venues like Vauxhall Gardens and the majority of
other sites were democratically ‘open’ with entry dependent on the basis of subscription or
payment of a one-off fee. Diana Donald has noted that ‘pleasure gardens especially come to
symbolise the levelling effects of commercialism in eighteenth century English society: all who
could pay could enter, and rank was to a certain extent disguised or ignored, a fact noted with
astonishment by foreign visitors’.208
‘Open’ sites such as Hyde Park and St. James’s Park, or pleasure gardens like Vauxhall and
Ranelagh were notorious as arenas in which a mixed audience could mingle to show off, compete
with and copy each other. These venues were included in the established ‘itinerary of cultural
pleasures’ appropriated and patronised by the ultra-fashionable. As the middling ranks sought to
emulate their social superiors, such sites offered them an exciting and indulgent form of
spectacle, and provided them with ample opportunity to observe details of the fashionable dress
and behaviour, as well as the conversation of the upper classes. The motivation of the ‘middling
classes’ to gather at these sites was then a mixture of fashionable compulsion, allied to a
voyeuristic and impulsive desire to be both socially educated and entertained. Similarly,
fashionable members of the aristocracy treated these occasions as a form of anthropological
exercise and observed the unusual behaviour of those striving to copy them with a detached and
wry amusement. Graphic satire in the 1780s became increasingly concerned with these sites of
social collision and interaction and with the pastime of social observation and assessment.
Warwick Wroth has noted that the primary impulse here was visual and ‘citizens came to stare at
the great […] They came to see how the great folks were dressed, how they walked and how they
talked’.209 However, John Brewer has highlighted the fact that the act of indulging in leisure
pursuits was neither simple, nor unmediated:
207
N. Forster, An Enquiry into the Present High Price of Provisions (1767). 41.
Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III, 133.
209
Warwick Wroth, The London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century (London: Macmillan, 1896), 207.
208
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.
At the theatre, in the pleasure garden, the exhibition room, the assembly room […]
audiences made publicly visible their wealth, status, social and sexual charms […] The
ostensible reason for a person’s presence - seeing the play, attending an auction, visiting
an artist’s studio, listening to a concert – was often subordinate to a more powerful set of
social imperatives. The audiences were not passive but incorporated culture as part of
their own social performance.210
In this way, satirical prints highlighted the varying motivations of the heterogeneous jumble of
social groups as they came together to ‘take the air’. The promenade was a particularly
measured way of indulging in social observation and comparison. Walking afforded a leisurely
and extended way of taking gentle exercise, watching others and being seen in the right place, all
at once. Promenades were renowned as ‘specially demarcated areas in which [social]
competition took place’ and this meant that the action was accompanied by a set of unwritten
rules. As Peter Borsay notes, promenades were characterised by a paradoxical combination of
both license and control. As public arenas, they attracted ‘large numbers of eligible combatants
and spectators’ and these individuals volunteered to be judged by others on their visual
appearance. However, these public arenas were also characterised by a high degree of
regulation and this ensured the maintenance of a requisite degree of ‘elegance’ and control.211
Different social groups were indiscriminately thrown together to create a mixed audience which
then experienced a form of extended visual and social performance. During this spectacle,
individuals undertook the combined roles of observer and observed. Such visual ‘parading and
showing-off’ was also part of a longer-term strategy in which promenades provided an open-air
stage for what Terry Castle has called a ‘shimmering liquid play on the themes of selfpresentation and concealment’.212 Creating a form of marketplace for human commodities, these
occasions of social display ‘provided an excellent opportunity for potential customers to survey
the goods on sale (without pressure to purchase), and perhaps make initial advances that could
As the Theatrical Monitor of 1768 complained, ‘During the time of the representation of a play, the quality in the boxes
are totally employed in finding out, and beckoning to their acquaintances, male and female; they criticise on fashions,
whisper across the benches, make significant nods, and give hints of this and that, and t’other body’. See Brewer, The
Pleasures of the Imagination: English culture in the eighteenth century, 69.
211
Peter Borsay, ‘The rise of the promenade: The social use of space in the English provincial town c.1660-1800’, in The
Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies, Autumn 1986, pp. 125-133, 131.
212
Terry Castle, Masquerade and Civilisation: The Carnivalesque in Eighteenth Century Culture and Fiction (Stanford
University Press, 1986), 6. See also Terry Castle’s Introduction, Henry Fielding ‘An Essay on the Knowledge of the
Characters of Men’, ed. Henry Knight Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 1:155.
210
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be later developed in more intimate indoor contexts’.213 The impulse towards sexual, social and
cultural acquisition and possession therefore hinged upon the ultimate power and sustained
impact of visual presentation. This was also extended into other areas of society in which
commerce became indistinguishable from recreation and pleasure, and vice versa. 214
Another aspect of the promenade was its link to the debate on ‘fashionable’ nature. There was a
mutual desire on behalf of the audience to experience ideal nature both actively and vicariously.
Thus, participation in the escapist fantasy of a rural idyll was something in which both the upper
and middle classes indulged and this was reflected in the interesting amalgam of image and
reality within many prints belonging to this genre. The way in which the audience viewed and
related to the natural world and the social order was then symptomatic of its cultural conditioning
and an inbuilt system of beliefs. These paradoxes were reflected in the way in which different
viewers and Bunbury himself perceived the promenade and its symbolic setting. As Peter
Borsay has noted:
The town promenade can therefore be seen as one means by which an increasingly
urbanised society sought to retain contact with a retreating rural world. But the
countryside a citizen or visitor saw from the vantagepoint of his promenade was not that
of the farmer or agricultural labourer; it represented a townsman’s view of nature –
effortless, odourless, and muck less. Walks were indeed a sort of mythic Arcadian space
in which men could refresh their fevered urban brains. Thus, though the promenade
purported to be rural, it was as much part of the town as the high street or market
place.215
London was therefore conceived of as the location of the archetypal ‘urban promenade’. Like
other leisure activities and pastimes, the promenade included its own set of well-defined rules. In
the Mall, for example, ‘the people of condition’ who conferred its vogue-ish status as a meeting
place dictated the timing for a promenade. The ultra-fashionable appeared between twelve and
two o’clock in the afternoon and used this time to meet friends and arrange ‘appointments and
Borsay, ‘The rise of the promenade: The social use of space in the English provincial town c.1660-1800’, 131.
‘Taking on the spectator and transformative functions associated with theatre and the masquerade, shops became
places of pleasure as well as business. At this period when entertainment – most conspicuously the opera and the
masquerade – was becoming commercialised, commerce, in turn, was becoming recreational’. Mackie, Market a la
mode: Fashion, Commodity and Gender in The Tatler and The Spectator, 76.
215
Borsay, ‘The rise of the promenade: The social use of space in the English provincial town c.1660-1800’, 133.
213
214
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parties’ for later social occasions. They gathered again several hours later to make an evening
promenade in elaborate full dress. Dress was regulated in terms of a visual and theatrical
performance and leisure time was as rigidly structured and regimented as the Court timetable. A
set of unwritten rules governed the forms of attendance, style of dress and manners, all of which
were tacitly acknowledged by those classes who did not occupy a position at the social apex.
However, in an attempt to preserve a sense of exclusivity, these rules were often altered and
were themselves subject to fashionable change.
Despite the historical popularity of the Mall, from c.1770 to 1790, St. James’s Park became the
premier fashionable site to which all classes flocked in order to see and to be seen. Charles II
had landscaped the park ‘in the grand French style’ and it had since been open to ‘all fashionable
society’ and to those eager to emulate their social superiors. A host of contemporary observers,
all of whom commented on its natural beauty as well as the mixed nature of its company conjured
up the atmosphere of St. James’s Park. In 1786, Mme. Roland described it slightly dismissively
as ‘full of well-to-do people and well-dressed women […] but in general they are all trades people
and citizens’.216 This intriguing and heady mixture of nature, beauty and fashion, with its
underlying sense of social judgement, characterised many of the contemporary prints that strove
to recreate the outdoor blending of the classes. Social satire concentrated on sites in which an
unmediated cultural mixture occurred and the genre of prints that detailed places of public
assembly, including the promenades, symbolised the perceived blurring of social boundaries.
In the 1780s Bunbury again established himself as an innovator at the cutting-edge of fashionable
art. Just as he had anticipated and capitalised upon the vogue for Macaroni prints, so he was
also able to respond to the contemporary upper and middle class demand for large-scale
decorative works. It is possible that Bunbury both set and conditioned this market. As an
aristocrat, he occupied a unique position in being qualified to reproduce and ‘translate’ the
exclusive world of the upper classes, both from the inside as one who ‘belonged’ effortlessly, and
216
From Jacob Larwood, The Story of the London Parks (London, n.d.), 218, 249.
114
from the outside for the benefit of those who wished also to see themselves vicariously through
others. In this sense, Bunbury fulfilled separate functions for a number of different classes, so
that each saw and recognised its own pleasing reflection in his work. The middle class desire to
possess uncomplicated and broadly representational art and decorative items stimulated Bunbury
to produce large-scale designs that replicated a landscape panorama in an extended frieze
format. Bunbury’s resultant works were intellectually undemanding and visually appealing and
proved hugely popular with a target audience of like-minded friends and those eager to emulate
their social superiors. Gillen Darcy Wood has noted that ‘the print industry targeted new
bourgeois consumers. Its products, both in size and subject, were consequently designed to
appeal less to the artistic sensibility of their clientele than their practical need to decorate
domestic wall space’.217 Diana Donald has also speculated that the ultimate use of these
panoramic prints was fashionable space-filling and she notes that ‘the middling classes’ used
these items to decorate their staircases.218 The so-called ‘cult of enormity’ was extended to
include many other art forms and Bunbury’s prints in this manner were proof that he was able to
respond quickly to the demands of fashion and a particularly discerning audience.
St. James’s Park (1783)
Bunbury’s large-scale print of St James’s Park offered an extended view of social intermingling
and was published by J. Wallis on 30th November 1783. 41 As a large print, it was sold for the
not inconsiderable sum of two shillings and sixpence for a plain black and white copy, and this
meant that a hand coloured version retailed for around double that amount. 219 The high price
signified that this was a luxury item, and that those able to afford the purchase price would
necessarily be drawn from a socially privileged background with a significant disposable income.
The purchase of this print entailed a conscious choice regarding the art with which the owner
wished to surround himself and the way in which he wished to define and project his personal
taste to others. Prints were utilised as a form of genteel amusement and decoration and their
217
Wood, The Shock of the Real: Romanticism and Visual Culture, 1760-1860, 71-72.
Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III, 94.
219
Published by J. Wallis, No. 16, Ludgate Street & E. Hedges, No. 92, under the Royal Exchange, Cornhill. Price 2s 6d
plain.
218
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possession was linked to a vicarious inclusion in the fashionable beau monde. For those not
within Bunbury’s immediate circle of acquaintance, this would have been an aspirational
purchase of some significance, representing the chance to ‘buy into’ a particular social class. For
both upper and middle class audiences there was the added frisson that Bunbury may have
included the likenesses of fashionable individuals within his print and this increased the vicarious
perception of belonging and self-recognition. In this way, a narcissistic tendency similar to that
inspired by the Macaroni prints operated to lend the print an added worth incapable of being
measured in monetary terms. Bunbury’s image therefore provided a visual and cultural window
onto a scene that was both familiar and mythicised at the same time.
Bunbury’s print records a well-known metropolitan location, peopled with a variety of characters
drawn from different social classes. St. James’s Park depicts a wide and open sweep of treelined parkland with buildings seen hazily in the distance. The setting is at once rural and urban,
known and idealised. The grass is smooth and immaculately manicured suggesting that this is a
maintained and symbolically ‘controlled’ setting, while the lengthening shadows set the picture in
a timeless late summer afternoon. The scene itself is densely populated with a rich assortment of
characters and a mixture of different social classes identified by the varying nature of their
fashionable clothing. Each individual and group is involved in acting out its own story and this
encourages the eye to move across the picture space in order to view each one. Within the print,
the important central position is occupied by two pretty female figures, one of whom may be
identified as a courtesan, although both are fashionably attired. One wears a formal walking outfit
and stares up at the other, a beautiful, softly dressed woman who turns away from her, holding a
dainty parasol above her head. The presence of this visually arresting woman creates concentric
ripples of notice and attention that radiate out across the picture space. Groups of male figures
seen standing nearby are engaged in openly pointing at the woman or whispering about her to
their neighbours. Even male figures on the edge of the print cannot help surreptitiously stealing a
glance at the lady and are reprimanded for their curiosity by their outraged partners. In the
background, other figures are disposed in conversational huddles or walk across the park alone,
116
while in the foreground a group of boys is busy playing with a top. In Bunbury’s print, everyone is
engaged in intently looking at, or staring at, other people.220 The beautiful female figure at the
centre of the picture therefore acts as the initial catalyst for all subsequent action and reaction so
that the print provides an allegorical reading of life in miniature.
Viewed from a distance the picture is both graceful and pleasing to the eye. The composition is
expertly constructed and knots of figures balance areas of sunlight and shadow as they move
across the open park. The foliage of the trees is delicately rendered and creates a natural
canopy over the heads of the promenading audience, enclosing them within what is a form of
pastoral idyll, as well as a space of intense social comparison. By containing the people between
grass, trees and sky, Bunbury celebrates the rural and innocent nature of the park, while
populating it at the same time with a range of more worldly human inhabitants. The
accomplished engraving style emphasises the decorative nature of the print, but on closer
inspection, the space comes alive with the complex interplay of characters within an open public
space. The print then operates on two different levels, and may be responded to as a detailed,
elegant reproduction of a social meeting place, as well as a clever and intricately manipulated
observation of human nature. There is also the added possibility that some of the figures
included in the print may have been friends of Bunbury and that they will consequently have been
recognisable to their contemporaries. The print is then a ‘snapshot’ of a sociable public
characterised by their intense interest in each other as the objects of scrutiny and gossip.
Bunbury’s print therefore offers a sophisticated, mature and decorative rendition of society and
portrays it as a relatively harmonious whole. In one sense, reality has been subordinated and
made more homogeneous by the visual conventions and the requirement of the middle classes
for decorative and undemanding forms of art. However, this seductive image also contains a
form of social comment. While the different social groups are mingled within the space of the
220
This is something that Rowlandson was to exploit in his later prints detailing forms of public and private
communication. See especially Skating on the Serpentine (1784) in the Huntingdon Library and Art Gallery and Stowe
Gardens (no date) in the London Museum as representative examples.
117
Park, they also remain separate and individually differentiated. Bunbury represents various
character types, including the courtesan, the spinster, the nursing mother, the leering old man
and the henpecked husband, and fully acknowledges their relevance and presence within the
picture space. As a detached observer, he is more interested in recording the ways in which
people interact with one another rather than providing incisive social comment. Bunbury views
the Park as an entity or a character in its own right and this dictates the kind of social interaction
that takes place within its confines. He is caught up in the drama and the energy produced by the
meeting of different groups of people and sets this social/visual entertainment within an ideal
location that is both rural and urban. These complex layers of meaning and the emotional charge
of Bunbury’s original intention are heightened by the accomplished engraving style and this
combination acts to increase the print’s intense visual appeal.
St. James’s Park (1783) and Vauxhall Gardens (1785)
In considering visual appeal, it is interesting to contrast Bunbury’s print St. James’s Park with his
friend Thomas Rowlandson’s famous depiction of Vauxhall Gardens published two years later in
1785. 42 Rowlandson’s gorgeously decorative print depicts an evening entertainment held at the
fashionable Pleasure Gardens in Vauxhall. Throngs of people have gathered to listen to a
concert, but they are more interested in observing each other rather than paying attention to the
diminutive female soloist. The restlessly undulating and picturesque audience includes
representations of a number of famous personalities and is particularly characterised by its
vibrancy, disparity and sense of movement.221 Like St. James’s Park, Vauxhall Gardens
represents an image of groups of people at their leisure, although here the relaxed and
pleasurable occasion is pervaded by a strong sense of social rather than visual differentiation.
While Bunbury is scrupulous in observing the individual details of a character, Diana Donald has
noted Rowlandson’s artistic inability to portray ‘real’ people and his tendency to reduce them to
‘living symbols, their known public characters conveniently representing the qualities of social
A curator’s note for the Holborne Art Gallery exhibitionCanaletto and The English Pleasure Garden (10 July – 30
September 2007) provides an annotated key to the characters included in Vauxhall Gardens. These include: James
Boswell, Hester Thrale, the Duchess of Devonshire, Oliver Goldsmith, the Prince of Wales, Mary Robinson and Mrs. Barry
221
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types’. This difference between the amateur and the professional artist is then based primarily on
the availability of ‘time’ as well as personal inclination. However, according to James Sherry,
Rowlandson ‘could not get interested enough in the individuality of other people to portray them
with accuracy or feeling’.222 Rowlandson’s lack of emotional engagement with his characters is
then contrasted with Bunbury’s genuine enthusiasm and talent for catching the gestures and
personal mannerisms that constituted an individual’s unique character. Both St. James’s Park
and Vauxhall Gardens may be classified as decorative objects in their own right, but their
structural methods of composition differ significantly. Where Vauxhall Gardens presents the
viewer with a seductive blur of swimming colour and figures, St. James’s Park is sunlit and
ordered like an attractive but finely modulated dance.
If their technique differs, then Rowlandson and Bunbury are alike in the good humoured approach
to their art and both refrain from indulging in any form of barbed or personal satire in these
contrasted works. In Vauxhall Gardens, Diana Donald has described the effect as ‘jocular and
ambiguous, with phantoms of the fashionable world alternately taking on personality and sinking
again into the crowd, like a flitting of thoughts and associations through the spectator’s mind’.223
Rowlandson was a master at creating decorative images that were characterised by their visual
seductiveness, sometimes in spite of their subject matter. Like Bunbury, he too indulged in the
creation of fashionable prints that catered for more conservative and ‘nice’ middle class taste.
The style of his engraving conveyed a certain amount of artistic ‘distance’ and rendered his
subjects intensely aesthetically pleasing and translated his prints into decorative objects in their
own right. The ultimate effect of Rowlandson’s art was ‘picturesque’ and this, when combined
with an appreciation of humour, protected the viewer from overt social comment. Although less
aesthetically seductive and visually cohesive than Rowlandson’s, Bunbury’s images possess a
similar ultimate impact.
‘The Old Bawd of Sutton Street’ among many others. I suggest that Rowlandson’s eclectic montage technique represents
an eighteenth century version of the Beatles’ iconic Sgt. Pepper album cover.
222
James Sherry, ‘Distance and Humour: The Art of Thomas Rowlandson’, Eighteenth Century Studies, Vol. II, No.4,
1978, pp.457-472. 459.
119
Another comparison between Rowlandson and Bunbury may also be enlightening. Both artists
specialised in representations of sites of social mixture and interaction and these included
individuals indulging in the act of observation. James Sherry has commented perceptively on
Rowlandson’s unique attitude towards the visual and the act of observation. Ronald Paulson
notes that Rowlandson’s art is based on ‘people looking at things’ and this includes objects,
entertainments, scenery, or other people.224 Both commentators conclude that Rowlandson
offers and also celebrates a unique ‘way of seeing’. 225 While Bunbury depicts individuals who are
fascinated with each other, he also portrays life as a series of staged dramatic performances. He
therefore includes the viewer as part of his personal audience, but also represents characters that
are engaged in watching visual spectacles initiated for their own amusement. Bunbury casts
himself as the primary observer in these visual transactions and then translates this eagerness to
see and to record his impressions into his artistic curiosity about life. This method presents a
direct contrast to that of Rowlandson whose work is characterised by its ‘lack of emotional impact’
and its tendency to both diffuse and defuse emotions. This lack of engagement is viewed as an
emotional failing, but it also represents a business expedient:
[Rowlandson] was quite willing to draw anything from pornographic postcards to masterly
exhibition pieces. Anything, that is, for which he could earn some money. A skilful
opportunist rather than a creator of new forms, Rowlandson was ready to follow fashion
wherever it led him, content if he could turn out another picture through its help. 226
While Rowlandson’s motivation to be curious was based on financial considerations and the
dictates of his audience, Bunbury’s independence meant that he was free from these commercial
pressures. In this way, his vision is simultaneously both purer and also less objective than
Rowlandson’s. Bunbury records exactly what he sees with a sense of evangelical and
anthropological gusto. He is interested in noting every detail that makes an individual ‘different’
and unique. However, this means that he occasionally becomes too personally involved in the
minute details of observation to recognise the wider social and political patterns and nuances that
223
Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III, 137.
Ronald Paulson, Rowlandson: A New Interpretation (London: Studio Vista, 1972), 80-92.
225
See Rowlandson’s use of ocular instruments, such as eye-glasses and telescopes, in the drawings Dr. Syntax and the
Bathers (1812, private collection), Modern Antiquities and Lady H**** Attitudes (undated), among many others.
224
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shape a restlessly moving society. In contrast, Rowlandson was able to adopt a more detached
stance and this ensured his artistic objectivity. His art hinged upon the assumed existence of two
very different types of spectator: the first who uses observation as a substitute for action, and
another who uses observation as ‘the only way’ of achieving lasting satisfaction. In this sense,
Rowlandson’s perception of society is very different from that of Bunbury.
Many of Rowlandson’s characters consciously keep life at a distance and instead use observation
as a form of voyeurism and as a displacement activity. In contrast, Bunbury’s characters are
actively involved in simultaneous observation and dynamic action. The work of both Rowlandson
and Bunbury is marked by its enthusiastic energy, but the animating life force of each artist is
presented in contrasting forms. If the power of Rowlandson’s art is identified with nature as
‘exuberant, prolific and indifferent’ as the artist himself, then Bunbury’s art may be seen as
energetic, distinct and yet also socially inclusive. He is able to provide a much more balanced
and less unstable view of the world, and this is directly associated with his social privilege, selfconfidence and genuine faith in the prescribed order of things. Bunbury is therefore less
politically and socially radical than Rowlandson, but he is also more humane and better able to
pick out an individual from the crowd. Unlike his social superior, Rowlandson does not have the
luxury of time in which to record the more subtle nuances of differentiation within his schemes of
commercially attractive visual decoration.
Conclusion
Bunbury’s treatment of the Macaroni and the urban promenade provide two contrasting views of
his approach to social change and differentiation. While it has been acknowledged that a whole
genre of prints in the 1780s and 1790s dealt with the subject of social mixture, none were able to
provide an audience with a simultaneously internal and external viewpoint. Bunbury’s unique
position as a member of privileged aristocratic society meant that he was both a part of what he
portrayed, and was yet removed from it, as an artist keeping ‘life’ at a slight distance. This
226
Sherry, ‘Distance and Humour: The Art of Thomas Rowlandson’, Vol. II, No.4, 1978, 458.
121
unusual and dichotomous position then dictated the form that Bunbury’s art would take. Because
he was an amateur rather than a professional he lacked the financial motivation to create images
that were socially or politically incisive. His leisured existence and his relaxed nature meant that
he responded to certain stimuli in a more measured way. Bunbury’s freedom from commercial
pressure also meant that he was able to choose subjects that either amused him or engaged his
attention and these were also the subjects that diverted and entertained his like-minded friends.
As an ‘insider’, he was therefore able to tap into the prevailing and dominant culture, in order to
cleverly anticipate its next fashionable move.
In this way, Bunbury’s prints offer both a ‘near’ and ‘far’ vision of contemporary society and
different forms of ‘belonging’. His views are subtle, rather than heavy-handed and despite the
atmosphere of acknowledged social change, they alter very little over time. Bunbury’s treatment
of the Macaroni is an early expression of his artistic creed. As an enthusiastic young man, he
draws his friends and the individuals who copy or wish to emulate them, and he does so without
judgement. He views fashion as a physical mark of belonging and concentrates on the revelation
of real character, rather than the vicious exposure of those who lack social qualifications.
Consequently, while Bunbury’s prints contain an element of cultural comment, this remains
implicit rather than explicit. In his later work, Bunbury exhibits a similar sense of balance and
perspective. As a member of the fashionable elite, he is well acquainted with sites of social
mixing and the urban promenade in particular. Here, his vision widens from one known or
observed individual to a whole population and an England in miniature. Bunbury depicts
disparate throngs of individuals united both by their pursuit of fashion and their joint reaction to a
particular visual stimulus. In this way, society is represented as both infinitely various and yet
narrowly contained. Life is made up of various actions and reactions and these form a series of
‘known’ social performances. Bunbury then highlights the fact that, despite the presence of
different social groups within the park, the audience is united by its shared human impulses. In
the treatment of both the Macaroni and the London Promenade, Bunbury was successfully able
to read and anticipate contemporary artistic trends. From the production of the first intimate
122
single Macaroni portraits for his friends, to that of ambitious large-scale images, he positioned
himself at the cutting edge of fashion.
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CHAPTER 3
THE PERFORMING ENGLISHMAN: THE SOLDIER AND THE BEAR KEEPER
Introduction
In this chapter I argue that a form of social structuring accompanied the viewing of certain types
of spectacle and that the desire to see and to be seen created its own form of entertainment. The
collective act of observation and the consumption of spectacle are explored in relation to their
ability to transcend selected hierarchical considerations, while ideas relating to the phenomenon
of the social spectacle are extended and developed. I suggest that from a position of relative
obscurity, the military came to be seen as a reflection of society and a medium for the expression
of social and national values. I examine the attitude of the English public towards spectacle in
Sheridan’s theatrical entertainment The Camp (1778) in which elaborate scenery and stage
devices are deployed to heighten the audience’s viewing pleasure. The dramatic spectacle of
The Camp is then compared with Bunbury’s A Visit to the Camp (1779) in which a site of military
preparation is transformed into one of fashionable performance. It is here that a disparate and
socially divided audience is temporarily unified by the collective desire to assimilate novel visual
spectacle. I therefore argue that ‘social belonging’ becomes an alternative form of reality in which
the audience itself colludes.
This argument is extended to include Bunbury’s print The Dancing Bear (1785) in which a mixed
audience is caught in the act of viewing. Questions relating to different means of social
categorisation and distinction, including the role of the performer, the artisan and the person of
fashion are then examined. I also suggest that Bunbury’s prints express the conviction that
collective observation and consumption of visual spectacle results in the transformation of
random social groupings into a unified whole. As both the creator and the observer of this
process, Bunbury was able to pinpoint and record the exact moment of this change. Although he
was incapable of remaining wholly detached from his love of spectating, as an artist and a
member of the social elite, Bunbury was partially absent from the scenes he portrayed. I
124
conclude by arguing that Bunbury concentrated on the production of a comprehensive and
universal creative vision in order to please the exacting and socially mixed audience for his prints.
Social spectacle
Bunbury’s military and ‘crowd’ prints represent an important expression of the fantasy of national
identity.227 They are based upon the imaginative construct of a democratic social inclusiveness
that was glaringly absent from both the military and from society at large. The English prided
themselves on their social fluidity, their constitutional independence, their freedom from
monarchical and religious tyranny and their encouragement of free thought and speech. In
reality, English society towards the end of the eighteenth century was characterised by its deeply
ingrained prejudice and hierarchical structure and by the narrow-mindedness, aggression and
suspicion it directed towards foreigners. However, this self-perpetuated myth of national identity
acted as a potent defense mechanism. It was constructed in order to reassure an isolated island
people that they were safe, precisely because they were better than everyone else was.
Bunbury’s art reflects an easy self-confidence based on unquestioned social certainties and a
belief in this myth of English national identity. As a member of both the upper class and the
Militia, Bunbury occupied a position at the privileged apex of the English social system and as
such he was responsible for the propagation and prolongation of this fantasy. 228
As war with France became increasingly likely, the military correspondingly rose to prominence
from a position of relative social and cultural obscurity. Members of the upper classes were
mobilised to undertake active roles in the Militia and also assumed responsibility for the
establishment and perpetuation of a reinvigorated form of mythic English identity. Through the
There is an ‘unspoken premise in English historiography that “nationalism” is something that happened to other people
[…] The English weren’t nationalists – they were just naturally patriotic.’ Stefan Collini, English Pasts: Essays in History
and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 13.
228
[He] ‘regarded his own country […] whenever he thought about it […] as being the supreme country in the world. He
didn’t force his opinion down anyone’s throat; it was simply so. […] He had a fine seat on a horse and rode straight; he
could play a passable game of polo, and he was a good shot. Possessing as he did sufficient money to prevent the
necessity of working, he had not taken the something he was supposed to be doing in the City very seriously […] He
belonged, in fact, to the Breed; the Breed that had always existed in England, and will always exist to the world’s end.
You may meet its members in London and Fiji; in the lands that lie beyond and at Henley […] They are always the same,
and they are branded with the stamp of the Breed. They shake your hand as a man shakes it; they meet your eye as a
man meets it.’ Richard Usborne, Clubland Heroes (London: Constable, 1953), 155.
227
125
operation of skilful artistic and dramatic propaganda, the military was then transformed from a
nationally despised force of hated foreign mercenaries, into the answer to the nation’s crisis of
identity. This process was initiated by the American War of Independence in the mid-1770s and
was completed by the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. Service in the Militia as an officer
enabled the upper classes to combine a traditional love of command with the excitement of selfpromotion, but it meant something much less accommodating for the disproportionate number of
other classes who made up its ranks. The Militia was deeply hierarchical and it was particularly
unpopular with members of the middle and lower classes who were pressed into serving as
volunteers. The excitement experienced by the social elite at joining their regiments was
reflected in the reality of geographical relocation and long periods of separation from their families
for those from less privileged backgrounds.
The upper classes guided and drove the patriotic propaganda machine and this ensured that
images of soldiers conformed to the need to project a self-confident and positive image to the
nation, and more importantly to those outside it. These images were ratified by other classes
who could indulge in a shared sense of patriotic feeling and national unity against the foreign
other. Each class possessed an equal ideological stake in this image of superior fighting power
and moral perfection and they were consequently reluctant to relinquish it. For the privileged, the
images were a complex amalgam of posturing to other nations but also as a rallying cry and an
assertion of power to the classes beneath them. Meanwhile the middle and lower classes
consumed patriotism in order to bolster their confidence in those who would lead them into battle.
The sabre rattling of the officer class was therefore directed just as carefully at a home audience
as it was to a foreign one.229 Fear of revolution at home and invasion from abroad was then
combined in the need to produce images that perpetuated a strong English identity and a shared
sense of cross-class purpose.230
There is an Open University module on ‘Englishness and Ideology’ and this makes it clear that Englishness is a
constructed image and the dominant ideology of the ruling class: ‘there is pressure on people to accept these ideas from
the people who generate them.’
229
126
Bunbury’s images project a particular view of the military, but they are also characterised by his
own personal experience and unique ‘insider’ knowledge.231 They are directed primarily at an
audience capable of sharing his immediate frame of social reference, but include subtle reference
to the differences that existed between the idealised image and reality of soldiering and this
makes them relevant and accessible to other classes. Bunbury’s observations on the inequality
between officers and other ranks and the evils of conscription and familial separation add ‘local
colour’ and are employed to reinforce a comic point or to act in support of an overall theme. The
existence of these artistic ‘asides’ is significant and because their inclusion was subtly handled,
the prints were able to communicate with a much wider audience. While Bunbury’s views were
necessarily circumscribed by his social privilege, they represented his openness to an alternative
form of contemporary reality and an awareness of the wider social world. In comparison with
professional artists like Gillray and Cruikshank, Bunbury’s ideas were covertly expressed but his
complete involvement in the activities he undertook was born of a comparable artistic curiosity to
learn. This meant that he was able to see and record more of the life around him. As a member
of the Militia, Bunbury was particularly aware of issues directly affecting the military and in
particular the ignorance and curiosity expressed by the English public in connection with it. This
detached and ironic sense of humour is expressed in his prints. 232 43
In the 1770s and 1780s, social and domestic tensions including the war with America and the
threat of French invasion caused a collective feeling of national uncertainty and anxiety. The
seriousness of life was offset by an intense interest in alternative forms of reality as a means of
escapism and these included drama and visual spectacle. For the members of the upper classes
who bore the pressure of decision making and action taking, the social world became a theatrical
performance and contemporary commentators expressed their concerns regarding the
230
See Paul Langford, A Polite and Commercial People 1727-1783 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 621-636, See
Linda Colley Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837, 283-319.
231
Bunbury became a 2nd Lieutenant in the West Suffolk Militia in 1778 and retired in the rank of a Lieutenant Colonel in
1798. Both his sons joined the Army. His eldest son died travelling back from the Cape of Good Hope in 1798, but his
second son enjoyed a long and successful career in the Army and wrote a number of books of the Napoleonic and other
military campaigns. See also Sir Charles J. F. Bunbury (ed.) Memoir and Literary Remains of Lieutenant General Sir
Henry Edward Bunbury, Bart. (London, 1868).
232
See also Gillray’s engraving A March to the Bank (1787), published by S. W. Fores, Heroes Recruiting at Kelsey’s – or
– Guard Duty at St. James’s (1797), published by H. Humphrey.
127
shallowness of what was frequently labelled a ‘masquerade’ culture.233 The power of visual
communication extended into every aspect of life and was channeled into the manufacture of
uniquely tailored cultural products that catered to the general appetite for theatrical display.
Gillen Darcy Wood has commented on the all-encompassing nature of the ‘visual entertainment
market’ in the 1780s, describing it as ‘a gaudy assortment of popular theatres, West End shows,
and fairground style attractions’.234 Drama reflected the prevailing mood of society and bridged
the gap between high and low culture, just as popular prints were enjoyed by all classes, so that
by the mid-eighteenth century, the theatre had become an English institution. 235 Cecil Price has
estimated that there were up to 12,000 regular playgoers in London alone and theatres were
open every night from the middle of September to the end of May and tickets cost 1/- for upper
seats, 2/- for the gallery, 3/- for the pit and 5/- for boxes. In this way, ticket prices dictated a form
of social hierarchy in which the seating was meaningfully divided by basic class distinctions. The
composition of a theatre audience therefore mirrored the society that existed outside it:
By common consent, certain parts of the theatre properly belonged to certain sorts of
people. Footmen (after keeping places below) and sailors were to be found in the upper
gallery; trades people went into the ‘best’ gallery; the professional classes sat in the pit,
and the aristocracy in the boxes. These were the general rules but they were not always
applied. Criminals also knew their stations: pickpockets were everywhere but throve
most in the crowded entrance passages. Prostitutes of both sexes were to be found at
the back of the front boxes as well as in the galleries and the front rows of the green
boxes.236
Boxes were the ideal location from which to see and to be seen and the most wealthy and
fashionable members of the audience habitually occupied these. Oliver Goldsmith’s Citizen of
the World commented wryly on the fact that audiences created an entertainment quite separate
from that of the play itself. The purely visual experience of looking, seeing and acting is
emphasised as the audience adopts the primary role in an elaborate form of a tableau vivant.237
233
See Castle, Masquerade and Civilisation: The Carnivalesque in Eighteenth Century Culture and Fiction.
Wood, The Shock of the Real: Romanticism and Visual Culture, 1760-1860, 86.
The links between popular art and drama have been noted by Deirdre Shauna Lynch: ‘the entertainment provided on
the mid-eighteenth century stage was […] allied to that provided by the print shop window […] Theatre was a kind of
animated caricature’. Lynch, The Economy of Character: Novels, Market Culture and the Business of Inner Meaning, 7071.
236
Cecil Price, Theatre in the Age of Garrick (Oxford: Blackwell, 1973), 86-7.
237
For a discussion of the ‘language of gesture’ see Anthony Strignell, ‘Diderot, Garrick, and the Maturity of the Artist’,
British Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1, Spring 1987, 13-24.
234
235
128
The rest of the audience came merely for their own amusement; these rather to furnish
out part of an entertainment themselves. I could not avoid considering them as acting
parts in a dumb shew; not a courtesy or a nod that was not the result of art; not a look nor
a smile that was not designed for murder. Gentlemen and ladies ogled each other
through spectacles.238
William Hogarth was the first artist to portray the theatrical audience in a meaningful way in his
1729 series of paintings recording Gay’s The Beggars Opera.239 44 In these images he
experiments with the representation of the audience and pictures it as a restlessly moving and
fluid entity that distracts the attention of the viewer from the central performance and creates an
alternate series of focal points. The audience therefore becomes as much part of the visual
spectacle as the actors themselves do. A later print by Hogarth entitled The Laughing Audience
(1733) illustrates a group of people seated in the pit of a theatre, laughing uncontrollably at a
play.240 45 The viewer’s gaze is diverted from the main body of the print by the inclusion of
fashionably dressed men in the gallery above as they flirt ostentatiously with a group of female
orange-sellers. In these images, Hogarth made the distinction between those who have come to
see and those who have come to be seen: one implies a passive contentment in being lifted out
of oneself, while the other implies an active desire to retain a conscious self-possession.
The theatre was a place in which the audience acknowledged its right to do both. Cecil Price has
noted that the audience’s sense of its own power had ‘increased with the growth in size of the
playhouses’ and that it consequently delighted in exercising particular English ‘rights’. 241 These
rights included a freedom to behave as it wished and to express its feelings in loud hisses of
displeasure and rioting if a performance was deemed unworthy of attention. 242 The creation of an
alternate performance by the audience was augmented by impromptu participation in plays by
those who were willing to pay for the privilege and those who were ‘accustomed to wander into
238
Oliver Goldsmith, The Citizen of the World, Letter XXI.
For a discussion of these prints, see Jenny Uglow, Hogarth: A Life and a World (London: Faber and Faber, 1998), 13340, Mark Hallett, Hogarth (London: Phaidon, 2000), 44-54.
240
Hogarth designed this as the subscription ticket for his Marriage a la Mode series.
241
Price, Theatre in the Age of Garrick, 101. This extended to the right to wander onto the stage and take part in plays, a
practice that continued into the mid-1770s.
239
129
the back-stage […] there to watch the action from the sides or to flirt with the actresses’. 243 The
dissolution and re-evaluation of the barriers between the performer and the viewer and the
distinction between spectacle and reality therefore became an endlessly repeated and cyclical
movement.
The theatre also fascinated the artist Thomas Rowlandson who gained intimate access to it
through his Academy school friend, the Drury Lane actor John Bannister. 244 Throughout the
1780s, Rowlandson produced a series of pen and ink sketches detailing audiences engaged in
watching performances, as well as each other. The best examples of his work in this style
include Side-boxes at the Opera (1785), An Audience Watching a Play (1785), Box-lobby
Loungers (1786) and Comedy Spectators, Tragedy Spectators (1787).245 46 These visually
seductive drawings concentrate on the study of beautiful women engrossed in viewing a play, as
they themselves are both overtly and covertly observed by leeringly grotesque men.
Rowlandson’s work highlighted the combination of tension and voyeurism implicit in the act of
spectating, and this emphasised its uniquely complex and conflicting nature.246
From the mid-eighteenth century onwards, the primacy of visual culture was reflected in an
increased interest in theatrical scenery and stage dressing. 247 This was linked to the
contemporary preoccupation with consumer objects, surroundings and what Deirdre Shauna
Lynch has termed ‘the eloquence of the material surface’. At its most extreme, this issued in
Horace Walpole’s use of ‘papier mache fabric’ and ‘stage set designs’ to create his villa at
Strawberry Hill, as David McKinney has shown.248 Audiences displayed an eagerness to witness
There were many instances of riotous behaviour in the theatre. An audience expressed its displeasure at Bates’ play
The Blackamoor Wash’d White (1776) and was only pacified when Garrick stopped the performance.
243
Allardyce Nicoll, The Garrick Stage: Theatres and Audiences in the Eighteenth Century (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1980), 79.
244
John Riely, Rowlandson Drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection (Yale: Yale Centre for British Art: 1978).
245
Rowlandson’s An Audience Watching a Play (1785) was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1786 as the Opera House
Gallery.
246
Ronald Paulson has identified these characteristically restless creative forces as an impulse towards the ultimate
creation of a new social order. See Ronald Paulson, Representations of Revolution 1789-1820 (Yale: Yale University
Press: 1983), 120. See also A. Brett Waller & James L. Connelly ‘Thomas Rowlandson and the London Theatre’, Apollo,
86 (August 1967), 130-134.
247
Maria Nicoll, The Garrick Stage (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1980), 119-41.
248
David D. McKinney, ‘‘The Castle of my Ancestors’: Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill’, British Journal for Eighteenth
Century Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2, Autumn 1990, 199-212.
242
130
a greater range of realistic settings deployed on stage, while they also expressed a desire to
consume increasingly complex forms of visual spectacle. Italian scene painters employed at the
Royal Opera house were at the forefront of these changes and their work began to be responded
to as an independent form of art. The social status of these previously unrecognised artisans
correspondingly altered as they were recognised by the public as legitimate creative producers.249
After watching Galuppi’s production of Attalo at the King’s Theatre in 1748, a writer for the
London Chronicle noted:
We are presented with the scene of a square; not a dead piece of painted canvas, but
one in which the prospective [sic] is executed in so masterly a manner, that one would
almost swear it was something more than a deceptio visus.250
The addition of realistically detailed and imaginatively constructed scenery was capable of
transforming the ultimate viewing experience of the audience. The inanimate assumed a life of its
own and this added a further level of sensory and emotional pleasure to the act of viewing.
The two patented theatres of Covent Garden and Drury Lane lagged behind the Royal Opera
House in providing audiences with sophisticated scenery and stage effects due primarily to
economic constraints. As a consequence, their backdrops were continually recycled and stage
action was limited to a small number of generic scenes and locations. However, from 1771
onwards the Drury Lane stage was transformed by the presence of the scene painter Philippe
Jacques de Loutherbourg.251 This enterprising artist was employed by the manager Thomas
Sheridan to provide new scenery and his beautifully painted sets were accompanied by
pioneering stage and lighting effects. De Loutherbourg used his artistic talent and flair for design
to create a series of novel and visually stunning ‘entertainments’ that were able to compete with
the popular pantomimes staged at the rival theatre, Covent Garden. English audiences were
peculiarly receptive to visual stimuli and as the inhabitants of a true democracy, they were quick
to express their appreciation of a good set and the artist responsible for it:
See Sybil Rosenfeld & Edward Croft Murray, ‘A Checklist of Scene Painters working in Great Britain and Ireland in the
eighteenth century’, Theatre Notebook, XIX, 1965.
249
131
If the Streets, Buildings, Rooms and Furniture, Gardens, Views of the Country, etc, be
executed in the Taste of the Country where the Scene of the Action in the Play lies, and
the keeping and Perspective be good, the whole House never fails to give the most
audible Evidence of their Satisfaction.252
De Loutherbourg’s success reinforced the fact that contemporary English theatre audiences
thrived on dramatic spectacle and the associated mixture of different genres. Playgoers hungry
for visual stimulation were catered for in a theatre where the performance of comedy and tragedy
alike was followed by burlesque entertainments based on current events, with songs and dances
performed in the intervals. This collision of different artistic elements and the idea of life as a
theatrical performance accorded well with the contemporary response to all aspects of visual
culture. Animated scenes and clever stage effects represented the ultimate viewing experience
for a curious and innovation-hungry audience, and people flocked to witness complex visual
spectacles like those provided at the ‘Temple of Health and Hymen’ which opened at the Adelphi
in 1780. Presided over by the charismatic Dr. Graham, Roy Porter has discussed this parthealing experience, part theatrical performance in terms of its sensory complexity:
[It was] a healing shrine, yet one of the shows of London, a pleasure dome ravishing the
senses with an illusionist multi media brew of sounds, lights and fragrances; an
enchanted Fellini-land of tingling trompe-l’oeil mingling sensibility and sensuality. 253
Theatrical performance catered to the contemporary audience’s heightened awareness and
appreciation of visual stimulation. While affordability determined the social composition of the
audience and ensured that Dr. Graham’s devotees were drawn predominantly from the upper
classes, the love of spectacle was universal and crossed class barriers. The stratification and
codification of different characters and social types within the theatre therefore represented a
mirror image of the society that existed outside it. If the theatre represented the abstract
‘England’ in microcosm, then the physical bond and sense of kinship created by the act of
250
London Chronicle, 11-14 November 1748.
Nicoll, The Garrick Stage, 137-41.
252
Price, Theatre in the Age of Garrick, 80.
253
Roy Porter, ‘The Sexual Politics of James Graham,’ British Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2,
Autumn 1982, pp.199-204, 199.
251
132
spectating offset these observed and observable hierarchical distinctions. By becoming part of
an audience, individuals experienced what I have termed the ‘proximity of sensibility’ ordinarily
based upon closely observed class distinctions to reinforce identity and a sense of belonging.
Within the closed forum of the theatre the bond created by spectatorship was capable of
transcending social difference and the shared sense of communality was particularly noticeable
when viewing comedy as a universal and culturally indiscriminate form of escapism.
Social spectacle: Sheridan’s The Camp (1778)
In February 1778 France took the side of the American colonists against British interests and
England suddenly came alive with the threat of invasion. Troops destined for the colonies were
held back in order to provide a defense force for the country and the local Militias were called out
with camps hastily formed at Salisbury, Winchester, Bury St Edmunds, Coxheath in Kent and
Warley Common in Essex. These camps operated as part of the country’s internal defenses
against the very real threat of coastal attack by American privateers, as well as the possibility of
invasion by France. While the camps were run on strict military lines, their creation had the
secondary effect of increasing the profile of the British Army and this transformed soldiering (for
particular classes) into a suddenly fashionable occupation. Within a short period of time, the
military became an acknowledged and exciting part of contemporary social life and camps gained
the reputation of being ‘scenes of festivity and fun […] pleasant places not only for manoeuvres
and the manual exercise, but for fashionable picnic parties and flirtations’.254 A curious public
eager to immerse itself vicariously in the martial experience then flocked to military camps as the
new location for dramatic, visual spectacle. A London to Coxheath coach service was initiated to
cope with the huge numbers of visitors to the camp there and enterprising entrepreneurs set up
stalls selling food and souvenirs to visitors and soldiers alike.
Despite the ephemeral nature of the military camp phenomena, many authors and artists sought
to capitalise on its season of fashionable popularity. In a calculated and financially motivated
133
response to the prevailing popularity of the military, the dramatist Richard Brinsley Sheridan wrote
a ‘musical entertainment,’ fashionably entitled The Camp.255 The lighthearted drama was
performed at Drury Lane theatre on October 15th 1778 and enjoyed immediate and widespread
public success with the audience responding resoundingly to its overt patriotism. The piece itself
was an amusing and hybrid construction, mixing clever dialogue and topical references with
‘pretty’ music composed by Thomas Linley and sets produced by Sheridan’s resident scenepainter at Drury Lane, De Loutherbourg. 256 Spectators who saw the play described the stage
decoration in rapturous terms and judged Sheridan’s dramatic skills against De Loutherbourg’s
artistic innovation. During an early performance, one commentator summed up the experience of
watching The Camp:
The military manoeuvres now commence, and afford much entertainment, as well on
account of their novelty as the dexterity with which they were performed. Most of the airs
are very well adapted, though not many of them are new […] but the chief merit of this
performance is due to M. de Loutherbourg, whose fine representation of Cox-heath
Camp does great honour to him as an artist. Indeed the whole performance seems
chiefly designed to introduce the happy effects of that great master’s pencil, as the
dialogue, tho’ written by Mr. Sheridan, can only be considered as a temporary jeu
d’esprit.257
De Loutherbourg’s attempt at verisimilitude in his view of Coxheath was then consumed as an
accurate representation of the military camp, although art was also acknowledged as a
constituent part of the illusory experience. 258 In an interesting cross-over of dramatic production
with the established art world, De Loutherbourg’s painting entitled The troops at Worley Common
reviewed by His Majesty, 1778 was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1780. 259 The fact that a
Drury Lane scene painter exhibited a picture at the country’s most exclusive and conservative art
establishment was a testament to the level of his popular reputation and allied social status, as
well as to his genuine talent. While De Loutherbourg’s work was technically brilliant, his genius
254
Charles Robert Leslie and Tom Taylor, The Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds: with notices of some of his
contemporaries, Vol. II, 218.
255
See Katharine Worth, Sheridan and Goldsmith (London: Macmillan Press, 1992).
256
For a description of Linley’s music, see W. T. Parke, Musical Memoirs (London, 1830).
257
Town and Country Magazine, X (1778), 544-5.
258
It is probable that, as the acting manager of Drury Lane, Sheridan’s father sent de Loutherbourg to Coxheath to inspect
the camp and produce the topographically accurate designs for the stage scenery. Allardyce Nicoll, The Garrick Stage:
Theatres and Audience in the Eighteenth Century (London: British Library, 1980), 137-41. See Sybil Rosenfeld, Georgian
Scene Painters and Scene Painting (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
134
lay in an ability to create elaborate moving pictures that involved the audience directly and
appeared to show real actions. In the production of The Camp, spectacle was consumed as an
independent form of entertainment and the devices manufactured by De Loutherbourg formed an
integral part of the complete viewing experience:
In the beautiful perspective view of the Coxheath camp exhibited last night […] by a kind
of magic peculiar to himself, [De Loutherbourg] makes the different battalions, composed
of small figures, march out in excellent order, into the front of their lines to the
astonishment of every spectator.260
Visual spectacle was therefore much more than a static art form to be passively consumed, or
viewed as a series of pictures. Instead, it required the active participation of the viewer and an
extended suspension of disbelief that art could ‘move’ and be animated. De Loutherbourg
translated real and imaginary action into a spectacle in order to stimulate an emotional and an
intellectual reaction from the viewer. The audience consumed what it had not seen and could not
comprehend in reality and art was utilised to negate unpalatable truths and confirm illusion as the
preferred medium of reality.
The military phenomenon
Bunbury responded to the popularity of Sheridan’s entertainment with his own military series,
including the three companion prints A Visit to the Camp (1779), Recruits (1780) and Nancy
(1780).261 47 As the cross-dressing and love-sick heroine of Sheridan’s entertainment, Nancy
depicts the actress Charlotte Walpole in uniform, gesturing to a military encampment in the
distance. Military camps became fashionable places of resort and a novel alternative to the
metropolitan pastimes of the pleasure garden, the promenade and the theatre. A deep curiosity
and an ingrained sense of patriotic feeling guaranteed the magnetic attraction and success of
camps as a form of entertainment. All social classes were eager to indulge their appetite for
visual spectacle, novelty and a form of escapism, while the promise of viewing soldiers and the
259
Cecil Price, ed., The Dramatic Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), Vol. II, 707.
Morning Post, 16 October 1778.
261
All these prints were engraved by William Dickinson and published by Watson and Dickinson at 158 New Bond Street.
260
135
fashionable elite in the same geographically proscribed location also operated as a distinct selling
point. As desirable tourist destinations, camps then became vibrant meeting places for a random
assortment of social classes. The unmediated collision of different classes was linked to the
ambivalent and voyeuristic nature of visual spectacle and visitors were ready to be both surprised
and titillated by what they saw.262 This is reflected in a genre of prints characterised by their
salacious tone. 48 The military was consequently associated with the lure of a multi-sensory
experience and its links with high society and fashion meant that it came under pressure to justify
and advertise its actions to the public.263 Its reputation for corruption and regimented harshness
had made the Militia in particular and the Army in general deeply disliked and mistrusted and this
was reflected in the lack of a positive image in graphic art.
Historically, the Navy was well represented as ‘Jack Tar’ the honest but simple Englishman in
popular prints, but the absence of a charismatic spokesman for the Army meant that engravers
concentrated instead on its inherent and institutional corruption. The sailor’s naiveté was
parodied in prints like Bowles’s affectionately ironic A Rich Privateer brought safe into Port by
Two First Rates (1782) in which a smiling midshipman is cheerfully robbed by two prostitutes.
This comedy is offset by prints in which the sailor’s war wounds are unflinchingly portrayed, like
the anonymous The Sailor’s Return or Valour Rewarded (1783). The sympathetic public image is
reserved for the Navy and is contrasted with the more biting satire of T. Colley’s double image
entitled The Comforts – and – Curse of a Military Life (1781). 49 This print is pointedly addressed
‘To the Commander in Chief and Secretary of War – Under All Administrations’ and depicts two
well-fed and contented officers seated in a richly appointed apartment, raising their glasses in a
toast ‘To the Peace Makers’. The other side of the image shows a lean, one-legged officer
standing next to his wife and three small children in a dilapidated apartment. The family retains
Gillen Darcy Wood has commented on the fact that: ‘The spectacle of artisans rubbing shoulders with ladies of fashion,
and the clerisy with the demi-monde, became, in its turn, a rich subject for commercial art, taking the form of bawdy
satirical prints by Rowlandson, Gillray and others’. Wood, The Shock of the Real: Romanticism and Visual Culture, 17601860, 84.
263
It could be said that the twenty-first century Army is now run by civil servants who have little concept of its capabilities
and the unique circumstances under which it has to operate. There is a continual pressure to advertise and justify every
aspect of its role, actions and existence to a generally ill-informed, sceptical and occasionally hostile government and
general public. Of the three services, the ongoing advertising and PR campaigns for the Army are by far the most
262
136
their pride and the outward portrayal of respectability despite their lack of money, but the soldier
looks accusingly at the toasting officers while the sword displayed on the wall points ominously at
his son’s head. The printmaker holds the politicians responsible for the perpetuation of a corrupt
military hierarchy and a consequent lack of regard for ‘the Meritorious claims’ of individual
soldiers. It is significant that this print purports to have been produced by an anonymous ‘injured
soldier’ and that the fighting officers are symbolically exonerated from the charges of ineffectual
leadership and deliberate contemptuousness of those in their charge.
As an example of the graphic portrayal of ‘the cult of the officer’ Benjamin West’s ultimately
unsuccessful attempt to rejuvenate English history painting with his vast painting The Death of
Wolfe (1770), had the important side-effects of invigorating the contemporary portrayal of the
military and of increasing its popularity.264 50 In a rejection of the tradition of classical dress in
paintings representing military virtue and sacrifice, West provided instant and shocking
contemporaneity by clothing his figures in British uniform. The public was captivated by the
innovatory ‘realism’ of the painting and hundreds queued to view it at the Royal Academy
exhibition in 1770. In her perceptive discussion of the role of the military in the 1780s Linda
Colley cites Sir Benjamin West’s The Death of Wolfe and John Singleton Copley’s later painting
The Death of Major Pierson (1781) as images that ‘started a vogue for paintings of members of
the British officer class defying the world, or directing it, or dying in battle at the moment of
victory’. In fact, these iconic images viewed by a great number of the English public and
translated into popular prints in 1771 and 1783 represented the later and more complete
incarnation of a movement that had begun several years earlier.
The steady increase in military mobilisation was accompanied by the need to completely reimagine the military and this process was closely linked to the strength of patriotic feeling in
comprehensive. These are my personal views and I base these and other observations on my own first-hand experience
as a member of the Armed Forces.
264
This painting is discussed in William Vaughan, British Painting in the Golden Age, 110-125, Colley, Britons: Forging the
Nation 1707-1837, 179.
137
England.265 Patriotism was an immensely powerful physical and emotional construct and the
demand for forms of graphic art that were capable of articulating the complexity of feelings
engendered by the threat of war grew steadily more insistent. 266 The collective experience of
patriotic fervour was capable of transcending social difference, but Linda Colley has noted that
the later ‘market for patriotic iconography’ was aimed particularly at male members of the
fashionable elite who represented the officer class. The criteria for officer selection into the Militia
were based on social qualification and consequently the ruling elite monopolised the preparations
for war. Officers were chosen according to graded property qualifications and ‘the gentry bore no
charge for the Militia, as its expenses were paid out of general taxation, meaning that the major
burden of the new Militia fell upon the poor’.267 The officer class both needed and actively chose
to consume art that underscored their ‘war efforts’ and they consequently identified with the highly
selective ‘cult of heroism’ that developed during the later stages of the Napoleonic wars. This
tended to marginalise the contribution of ‘other ranks’ and focused instead on the officer class in
order to reinforce their superior social status and the attendant notion of selfless state service.
Although movement of this kind is discernible in Bunbury’s art, as a predominantly prerevolutionary artist his work is characterised by a predominantly more inclusive and egalitarian
approach.
The naissant ‘cult of heroism’ was undoubtedly selective and its momentum was certainly
provided by those who drove the Militia at the ground level. However, as the numbers of those
serving in the volunteer regiments increased between 1778 and 1793, the military ethos
permeated every class of society.
This process was particularly noticeable between 1798 and 1805, during which time ‘some effort had to be made to reimagine plebeian soldiers as potential heroes and as patriots [...] this process of adjustment often proved difficult’.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge writing in 1800, quoted in John Barrell, The Political Theory of Painting from Reynolds to Hazlitt
(New Haven & London: 1986), 139.
266
Contrast this with contemporary discussion: ‘The sense of national identity is being confused and misinterpreted as
three key words seem to be fused into one concept. People seem to no longer recognise, or even understand, the
difference between “patriotism, nationalism and racism”. Consequently, the perfectly innocuous patriotic declamation, “I
am English and proud of it” faces the threat of being labelled “racist”. This is why those of us who are neither football
thugs nor racists are almost ashamed of expressing our patriotism, our Englishness.’ Anonymous website response to
Andrew O’Hagan’s discussion entitled ‘Lost: a certain kind of Englishness’, 12 December 2007.
267
See John Stevenson, Popular disturbances in England, 1700-1832, 46.
265
138
Training in arms under the auspices of the state [became] the most common collective
working-class experience in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries […] the
pressures of war, rather than the experience of work or the example of political revolution
[…] had the most obvious potential to change lives, ideas and expectations.268
The gradual militarisation of society resulted in a symbolic ‘change of appearance’ in England.
This visual metamorphosis represented part of an important process of re-evaluation for the
upper classes. By physically donning uniform, they emphasised their ideological commitment to
a series of values centring around personal honour and selfless state service. By indulging in an
elaborate form of ‘showing off’ and public exhibitionism, the officer class also took part in an
complex charade in order to reinforce their established power base and to convince others of
their superiority. The adoption of military uniform operated to enhance the social, physical and
psychological impressiveness of those who wore it, however personally inadequate they might be
in reality. The subtle alteration of military uniform and the addition of increasingly flamboyant
detailing to draw attention to the wearer therefore represented aspects of a calculated visual
campaign to ensure the ultimate psychological capitulation of the target audience. This
playacting was more than simple theatrical self-expression and was instead linked directly to a
struggle for class survival. The manufacture of a convincing personal image was directly related
to the distribution of skilfully targeted forms of propaganda in other media. Linda Colley has
suggested that the durability of a ruling class is based primarily upon ‘how far it convinces others
– and itself – of its right to rule and its ability to rule’.269
I believe that one of the ways in which this can be achieved is through the repetition and
widespread distribution of simple, powerful imagery. The visual impact of Bunbury’s pared-down
military portraits is unmistakeable.270 The beautiful figure of A Light Infantryman is dressed in
immaculate uniform with headwear that is decorated with gently waving plumes. 51 He is caught
‘in action’ and his animated stance and pointing hand would not be out of place in a modern
268
Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837, 312.
Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837, 192-193.
270
These include A Light Infantryman (20 July), A Foot Soldier (20 July), A Life Guardsman (30 July), A Light Horseman
(30 July), A Drummer (6 November), A Pioneer (6 November), all engraved by F. D. Soiron, published by Thomas Macklin
in 1791.
269
139
brochure for Infantry officers, renowned for their meaningful gesticulation. 271 The graceful figure
and stance of the Light Infantryman is directly contrasted with its burly ideological opposite in the
form of the workman-like Pioneer. 52 He is equipped with a back-pack, carries an entrenching
tool over his shoulder and has his hands pushed into pockets under a leather apron. Despite the
Pioneer’s superimposition against a characteristically hazy background, there can be no mistake
that this individual is a member of the ‘other ranks’. He is resolutely stout and reassuringly robust
and his figure embodies the timeless values of hard work and military discipline. Members of the
Pioneer Regiment are nicknamed ‘Chunkies’ in recognition of their physical brawn to this day and
Bunbury captures the defining characteristics of these soldiers perfectly.
In asserting their right to shape operations of national importance, the aristocracy indulged
themselves with a series of fashionable performances based around standard military
manoeuvres and played to a safely captive audience. The elaborate costumes of the amateur
actors and the flimsy theatrical façade of the camps represented a fashionable spectacle in which
the mixed audience itself happily participated. However, nothing was as it at first appeared and
the lines dividing fashionable from military ‘use’ value became blurred as the camps established
their own routines. The Duchess of Devonshire was one of the first high profile ladies to serve as
an important propaganda function for the social elite. She spent several months at the military
camp at Coxheath alongside her husband and used part of her time to indulge in willed acts of
visual patriotism. As the prime embodiment of undaunted English resourcefulness, the Duchess
‘refused to equate a state of readiness with austerity’ and created the illusion of civilian comfort
by decorating her tent with ‘travelling tables, oriental rugs and silver candlesticks from
Chatsworth’.272 This desire to shape the environment and manufacture an alternative form of
reality was exactly in keeping with contemporary attitudes towards the power of the visual to
This is linked to the characteristic military ‘chopping hand motion’ used when directing operations or giving orders. It is
also related to the image of the incompetent officer armed with a map and pointing hopefully, but hopelessly, in a
particular direction. This reinforces the old military joke shared by all ranks to ‘never trust an officer with a map’. In the
twenty-first century, The Army Recruiting Group is responsible for the manufacture of incredible publicity material and I
have witnessed at first hand in Iraq the creation of powerful military images for public consumption. Although this
inevitably involved an element of staging, the raw materials were dramatic enough in themselves to requireonly minimal
styling. It is intersting that Bunbury’s images capture iconic military poses still utilised in current Army PR material.
272
Amanda Foreman, Georgiana’s World (London: Harper Collins, 2001), 48.
271
140
create emotional impact and convey a sense of individual personality. The conscious production
of illusion and whimsy was also associated with a ‘direct appeal to the imagination’ as David
McKinney has shown in his study of Walpole’s elaborate Gothic confection, Strawberry Hill. 273
At Coxheath camp, the values and material trappings of high society were awkwardly
transplanted into a military setting. While the female fashionable elite tripped through the mud of
the camp, soldiers undertook drill and exercised in preparation for war with France. 53
Paradoxically, this incongruous juxtaposition of fashion and warmongering was exactly in keeping
with the taste of the time and accorded well with the notions of English individuality and
eccentricity. The wider public colluded in the temporary displacement of reality by those who
abandoned a comfortable existence in order to support the military cause, and they regarded
them as a decorative form of patriotic propaganda. It was then ironic that these female marketing
genii were excluded from meaningful participation in camp life by the staid male atmosphere and
the strict rules of Army protocol. In a reaction against this imposed lack of an active role, the
Duchess of Devonshire created an alternative Militia in the form of a female auxiliary corps,
complete with its own uniform and augmented with a female mess that operated under its own
rules. These zealous actions prompted the Morning Post to note in July 1778 that: ‘Her Grace
the Duchess of Devonshire appears every day at the head of the beauteous Amazons at
Coxheath, who are all dressed en militaire […] and charm every beholder with their beauty and
affability’.
Just as the craze for military detailing in costume permeated every rank of society, so
newspapers and prints also highlighted the camps’ role as unique meeting places that
encouraged a holiday atmosphere and a potentially comic intermingling of social classes. While
the camp at Coxheath undoubtedly fulfilled a serious military purpose, the presence of the
Duchess of Devonshire and other celebrities ensured that it remained a popular topic of
conversation and gossip amongst the fashionable and ruling elite. The public avidly consumed
273
David D. McKinney, “‘The Castle of my Ancestors’: Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill”, British Journal for Eighteenth
141
newspaper and magazine articles that publicised the war effort, especially when these consisted
of escapist fantasies that deflected a more general feeling of anxiety. In this way, the ironic
image of aristocratic female infiltration of the camp as an exclusive male arena was used in order
to defuse anxiety about a French invasion. It also hghlighted the vulnerability of the military camp
as a social and historical phenomenon, while emphasising its unique ‘peep-show’ nature. The
co-existence of a bawdy and gallows sense of humour was expressed in the salacious ‘makeover’ given to female military manoeuvres in one contemporary poem:
And we not less daunted, will hew and will hack
And to take surer aim, we lay on our back!
We drop to soft music, ‘tis time we assure ye
Like the troop of fam’d Bays, you’ve seen at Old Drury.
At – gay camp, we’re in hopes to have plays,
And Breslaw’s expected here, one of these days. 274
Like many others caught up in the prevailing martial mood and excitement of the time, Bunbury
joined his county Regiment as a Lieutenant in 1778. The West Suffolk Militia had been formed at
Bury St Edmunds following the first Militia Act (1757) and was embodied in the years 1759, 1778
and 1793, after which it was sent to Ireland from 1798-99.275 Bunbury himself was stationed for
some months in 1778 at Coxheath as the establishment of a more mundane routine in the camps
followed the initial buzz of excitement and expectation regarding imminent attack by the French.
As daily life became routinised, many found that a military existence was less challenging than
they had originally imagined. After being stationed at Coxheath for two months, one young officer
wrote: ‘I like the life very well, it is however rather too much of a lounge’.276 Bunbury thrived on
the sociable nature of Militia life and he also relished the various opportunities that it provided him
with to draw directly from life. He produced a series of sketch impressions of the socially mixed
audience that he encountered in the camp and this included both fashionable visitors and raw
Militia recruits alike. As a member of the symbolic ‘military establishment’ characterised by its
Century Studies, Vol. 13, no. 2, Autumn 1990, 199-212.
274
Anonymous, The Camp Guide, In a Series of Letters from Ensign Tommy Toothpick to Lady Sarah Toothpick, and
from Miss Nelly Brisk, to Miss Gadabout (1778), 5.
275
See Edward Arthur Howard Webb, History of the 12th (the Suffolk) Regiment, including a brief history of the East and
West Suffolk Militia, the latter being now the 3rd Battalion Suffolk Regiment (London: Spottiswoode, 1914). See also
www.regiments.org/regiments/uk/vol and the Suffolk Regiment Archives, Suffolk Record Office.
142
close-knit brotherhood and strong sense of belonging, Bunbury possessed the gift of ‘insider’
knowledge and he incorporated this as form of artistic shorthand into his work. This visual
military ‘language’ was instantly recognisable to those belonging to Bunbury’s immediate social
circle but, with practice, other members of society were also also able to decipher it.277
Bunbury expressed a sense of democratic inclusiveness in his prints and this mirrored the
parallels that existed between visual art and dramatic performance. E. J. Clery has noted that:
‘the experience of playgoing could […] describe what it was like to join the crowd in front of a print
shop window’.278 The act of spectating was open to all classes and Bunbury’s personal and
intuitive response to drama enabled him to produce prints capable of communicating with a
variety of different audiences. To counter the inevitable tedium of camp existence, Bunbury
processed the theatrical elements of military life into artistic entertainment for those within the
circle of his immediate acquaintance. He produced quick sketches in the form of a graphic
shorthand that was capable of capturing individual character traits. Where Hogarth boasted to his
friends that he could ‘draw a Serjeant with his pike, going into an alehouse, and his Dog following
him, with only three Strokes’, Bunbury produced a similarly spare and spontaneous sketch to
amuse his friends and reinforce his artistic creed:279
A young private came to him one day […] to ask for a pass that he might visit his
sweetheart; Mr. Bunbury signed the pass and on the same paper drew a comical sketch
of the young man walking with his beloved; to the great amusement of the authorities and
others to whom the paper was shown.280
As a member of the military as well as the ruling elite who oversaw the routine administration of
the camps, Bunbury was able to create a unique view of the complex military experience. This
ability was directly related to the articulation of a sense of social belonging, while also addressing
the question of who possessed the 'right' to choose an audience and who was qualified to give
276
Lord Herbert, ed., Pembroke Papers, Vol. I (London: Jonathan Cape, 1939), 240.
This is similar to the military language adopted in Sheridan’s The Camp and also the obsessive military idiolect
developed by Capt. Shandy and Cpl. Trim in Sterne’s Tristram Shandy.
278
E. J. Clery, The Rise of Supernatural Fiction, 1762-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1995), 41.
279
See John Nichols, Biographical Anecdotes of William Hogarth (London, 1785).
280
See Bunbury, ed., Memoir and literary remains of Sir Henry Edward Bunbury, Bart, 8.
277
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verbal form to a cultural joke. The complex ideas of nomination and differentiation were then
linked with the positioning of certain types of exhibition in society and the role of the viewing
public. Bunbury used his unique personal vantagepoint to capitalise on the humour implicit in an
indiscriminate clash of social ranks. He also drew upon his own experiences to produce images
that distilled the eccentric individuality of English life as it was captured in microcosm within the
confines of a military camp.
A Visit to the Camp (1779)
The print entitled A Visit to the Camp was conceived during Bunbury’s time at Coxheath in 1778
and was published by Watson and Dickinson the following year and successfully exhibited at the
Royal Academy in 1780.281 54 It provides the viewer with a seemingly ‘instructive’ and realistic
image set within the confines of a military camp. A young soldier is cast in the role of a patient
guide as he chaperones two socially distinctive groups of visitors around an area of tented
accommodation. Bunbury’s image is more than simply a ‘documentary piece‘; on closer
inspection the soldier, the visitor and the viewer alike challenge the act of observation on several
different levels. The left-hand side of the picture is occupied by the figures of two socially
privileged visitors in the form of well-dressed, elderly gentlemen equipped with scholarly
accoutrements. One gentleman throws his head back and his haughty demeanour expresses his
disdain at being included in such indiscriminately mixed company. In contrast, his companion is
more openly curious and leans forward to squint rudely across the picture space through an
eyeglass.282 The military guide turns obligingly towards the two gentlemen and gestures at the
group of figures on the right hand side of the picture, as if to indicate that they are objects of
curiousity worthy of closer examination. This form of value judgement is based upon
considerations of class and the markers of external appearance and even the socially neutral
soldier is guilty of evaluating his charges. The group being stared at consists not of soldiers or
military representatives, but of three puzzled-looking citizens also being given a chaperoned tour
Bunbury’s pictures A Visit to the Camp and Camp Toilet were both exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1780 and the
print entitled Recruits was published in the same year. See Leslie and Taylor, The Life and Times of Sir Joshua
Reynolds: with notices of some of his contemporaries, II, 345.
282
See the earlier discussion of Bunbury and Rowlandson’s use of ocular instruments as a means of observing others.
281
144
of the camp. Separated from their natural habitat, these baffled middle class individuals have
been classified by Bunbury and his soldier proxy as intriguing social specimens. This group
embodies a strong sense of intermingled humour and pathos, especially in the gradual realisation
that they lack the visual or social co-ordinates with which to navigate in this entirely alien
environment. The visit to the camp is then transformed into a site of symbolic battle between the
classes and this is presided over by a military referee whose impartiality cannot be guaranteed.
Bunbury’s portrayal of the three citizen visitors conforms to a definite hierarchy of character types
and each betrays a lack of social sophistication represented in an over-zealous fondness for
theatrical props. The thin, warty and bespectacled man grasps a cane and a tricorn hat as
symbols of his sober and upwardly mobile nature. He is ranged alongside the parody of a
country gentleman in the form of a short, dumpy man sportingly carrying a rifle, with one hand
thrust nonchalantly into his waistcoat. Next to him, the diminutive figure of a female nervously
grasps a fashionable umbrella and is overwhelmed by her hat and her voluminous costume.
Paradoxically, the reliance upon fashionable disguises both exposes and highlights this
individual’s social failings, while it also symbolises her inability to feel at ease in an unfamiliar
situation. The oddly assorted group of visitors then provides a clever balance between the
gesticulating figure of the soldier and the two predatory figures of the gentlemen. Just as the
citizens are rudely stared at, so they return the gazes of their social superiors while the soldier
guide vainly attempts to divert their attention elsewhere. He points down a line of tents and into
the heart of the camp that is ostensibly the real subject of the visit. The intimation is that although
these two groups have come to observe soldiers in their natural habitat, they have instead
become the victims of a set of socially contingent viewing habits, and the intense curiosity of
others.
There is comedy in the different attitudes of the visitors and in their contrasting views of camp life
and its strange, indigenous inhabitants. The viewer is reminded that all those who come within
the camp are subject to different forms of categorisation, whether or not they are classed as
145
permanent or temporary residents. Members of the military are categorised as the unknown and
potentially dangerous ‘other’ and they are approached by visitors with caution as if they were
strange natural history specimens. This treatment provides a link with the way in which ‘cits’ are
processed as peculiarly English oddities for the attention of the connoisseur gentleman. The
share of belonging is cleverly reversed as military personnel assume that all visitors are ignorant
of their way of life, resulting in the endlessly circular translation of individuals into objects of
curiosity. The attitudes of the visitors and the occupants of the camp then mirror the hierarchical
structure of a society organised in terms of class and external appearance. The selected visitors
are those who are both willing to embrace the unknown and those for whom it is a deeply
alienating experience. The soldier guide therefore both encourages the observation of visitors
from a different social background while also temporarily deflecting this desire in a movement of
self-defense. The viewer is consequently stimulated to question exactly what, or whom, the
soldier believes that the visitors have come to observe.
The act of viewing is also made more complicated by the fact that the camp is located wholly
outside ‘ordinary’ society and that viewers are stripped of the requisite visual certainties on which
judgements are usually based. The camp environment is potentially alienating for those who visit
it and the military has a vested interest in perpetuating its enigmatic status. The soldier guide
intentionally pokes fun at all of his irksome charges and this act allies him with Bunbury as a
uniquely privileged military representative. In his awakward role as a civilian/military liaison
officer, the guide steers two socially distinctive groups around identical sights, but bridges the gap
between the groups by offering them the views that that their social conditioning has prepared
them to expect. This flourish of social democracy and apparent lack of differentiation highlights
the military sense of humour in which both groups, irrespective of their social composition, are
classified merely as ‘stupid civilians’.
The military hierarchy then formulates its own sense of ‘belonging’ and symbolises an alternative
structure that exists both inside and outside that adopted by conventional society. This idea of
146
other-worldliness is closely related to what is nominated as curious and fashionable, so that
camps become the theatres in which military and civilian actors take it in turns to perform and
also to observe one another from an ideological distance. In Bunbury’s print, each social group
has become so preoccupied with viewing the performance of the other that they are no longer
aware of their own part in the spectacle. Because they are unable to focus upon the ‘real’ object
of interest in the form of the military, it is left to the omniscient viewer to form judgements on the
respective merits of these socially disparate entities. The lack of interest in either the soldiers or
the camp itself is a reflection of the general eagerness to absorb the strangeness and novelty that
emanates from a mixed social audience. The partial act of viewing therefore becomes a
reflection of the symbolic near-sightedness of contemporary society and its shallow lack of
interest in reality, which here includes the military preparation for war.
Spectacle creates and perpetuates the existence of an audience receptive to external visual
display and preoccupied with the act of observing what is fashionable and ‘curious’. The humour
of Bunbury’s print consequently arises from the ironic inversion of expectations brought about by
its title – A Visit to the Camp. The military location provides visitors with the opportunity to view
those who have come to see and be seen, as well as those who are unaware that they are
themselves objects of interest. Bunbury’s print examines the act of viewing and also questions
the identity of those who believe that they possess the qualification to stare at and to observe
others. This emphasises the fact that the world is divided between what Deirdre Shauna Lynch
has called ‘those qualified to observe and those who are the object of others’ observation’.283
The print imagines the visitors as the viewing and paying public who attend a particular kind of
exhibition. By subtly differentiating between various types of audience, Bunbury enables each to
construct their own reading of the print.
Bunbury’s print therefore possesses the dual marketing impact of realism as the product of a
member of the Militia, and fashion as the product of an artistic amateur and member of the ruling
283
Lynch, The Economy of Character: Novels, Market Culture and the Business of Inner Meaning, 82.
147
elite. Bunbury’s privileged social status guaranteed that his prints made a strong appeal to
members of his own class, but they were also deemed attractive and requisite objects of
consumption by aspiring members of the middle classes. The comic universality of Bunbury’s
military prints consequently masked the fact that they fell simultaneously into the categories of
popular and exclusive art. They represented a socially superior form of ‘souvenir’ sketch and the
ideas behind A Visit to the Camp were later extended and developed in other prints, including A
Camp Scene (1784).284 55 Bunbury’s humour was also direct and uncomplicated and this
ensured that the viewer was neither challenged nor confused by a superfluity of visual detail.
Accordingly, the characters that he portrayed were reassuringly timeless and assumed the
universal status of English Everyman. The comedy of everyday life and ‘humanity’, as embodied
in the form of the socially distinctive military, was represented as unchanging and this provided
the viewer with a sense of continuity and patriotic escapism as the war with France dragged
on.285 56 Bunbury’s articulation of social and martial comradeship was linked with the wider
sense of public belonging and national identity that also made it a piece of patriotic propaganda.
His print both captured and capitalised upon the contemporary enthusiasm for the military, while
the uncomplicated quality of the entertainment that he provided ensured its appreciation by a
socially disparate audience.286
A Dancing Bear (1785)
The audience reaction to visual spectacle was explored in Bunbury’s sophisticated print entitled
The Dancing Bear in which a socially disparate crowd is temporarily united by the observation of
a street performance. This image is developed from a much earlier print and is also strongly
284
This was followed by The Deserter (1784) which contains an element of social comment, while Love and Hope (1786)
and Louisa (1795) are particularly sentimental portrayals. See F. Price, ‘Imagining Faces: The later Sentimental heroine
and the legible, universal language of physiognomy’, British Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1, Spring,
1983.
285
One of Bunbury’s most re-issued prints was Recruits (1786), in which three different English types are reviewed by a
beautiful officer. The down-at-heel but proud veteran becomes the ideal recruit. Tellingly, Bunbury’s print Recruits was
etched by Thomas Rowlandson as late as 1803 and then re-issued in 1811, illustrating the longevity and broad public
appeal of the original image during an extended period of war and international flux.
286
See the discussion of French prints and also the online exhibition by The Fitzwilliam Museum,Vive la difference! The
English and French stereotype in satirical prints, 1720-1815, www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/gallery/viveladifference
‘The subject matter was also well-liked by print-publishers because it had broad appeal and did not quickly date […] It was
a subject that could be depended upon to draw crowds by playwrights and caricaturists alike.’
148
reminiscent of A Band of Savoyards.287 57, 58 Bunbury’s portrayal of a contemporary audience
located outside the confines of a theatre is interesting for a number of reasons. Not only does it
include a series of finely observed individual characters, but it also depicts them without recourse
to stereotype. This balanced vision was unusual at a time when Ronald Paulson has noted that
the British crowd was seen as a potentially violent and disruptive force:
After 1780 the crowd was inextricably linked, in the minds of the English, with the
burnings and devastations of the Gordon Riots – an event which provided the terms that
would be used in the first accounts of the French Revolution in 1789. But in the years
leading up to 1780 the crowd had signified Wilkite celebration, parades and
demonstrations.288
The appellation of ‘crowd’ by contemporary observers also referred to a socially indistinct mass,
something that the author Tobias Smollett touched upon in his novel Humphry Clinker (1771):
‘The mob is a monster I never could abide […] and in this term of reprobation I include […] all
those who affect its manners or court its society’.289 While later events in France increased the
fear of collective or ‘mob’ activity, this view was also overlaid and qualified with ideas of British
‘liberty’ and associated with a positive and dynamic indigenous energy. 290 Bunbury’s
acquaintance and artistic contemporary Thomas Rowlandson was adept at capturing the
complicated nature of the crowd during a period of social change. He used his effortless and
elegantly gothic style to portray the peculiar ‘Englishness’ of massed social groups in a manner
that is interestingly compared with Bunbury’s. 291 Rowlandson’s print George III and Queen
Charlotte driving through Deptford (1785) illustrates the complex and yet reassuringly eccentric
nature of the English crowd described by James Sherry:
For this medley of characters – from the fat saleswoman, to the handsome guardsman, to
the one-eyed fiddler, to the unperturbed smoker – is the ‘Old Ship’ which is ‘Old England’.
These are the humours which the lightness of British rule, suggested by the lack of
Bunbury’s A Dancing Bear developed from a much earlier image, dated 1774 and published by James Bretherton.
Paulson, Representations of Revolution, 134.
Tobias Smollett, Humphry Clinker (1771), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 37.
290
Even Edmund Burke spoke of the Revolution in terms of ‘spectators and actors’ in his Reflections on the Revolution in
France (1790), (London: Penguin, 1986), 92-3.
291
For discussion of Rowlandson’s work, see John Riely, Rowlandson Drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection (Yale:
Yale Centre for British Art: 1978). Also Grego, Rowlandson the Caricaturist: A Selection from his Works with Anecdotal
Descriptions of his Famous Caricatures and a Sketch of his Life, Times and Contemporaries and Everitt, English
Caricaturists and Graphic Humorists of the Nineteenth Century: How they interpreted their Times.
287
288
289
149
prominence of the King and Queen, allows to express themselves unhindered and
undisguised. In this land of Originals, including the ‘Learned Pig’ and ‘The Surprising
Irish Giant’ on the billboards in the background, there is no need to be alarmed at the
combination of order and disorder, regularity and license, elegance and grotesqueness
which characterises the scene.292
The acknowledgement of the variety and juxtaposition of different, often surprising elements
within a scene is a reflection of the place held by the visual in contemporary culture. Bunbury’s
print provides a response to this and is marked by a form of English eccentricity combined with a
strong sense of social inclusiveness. The viewer is not overloaded with the visually challenging
information of Rowlandson’s print, but instead various elements are combined to form a clear and
coherent social picture. Bunbury draws upon a series of complex historical assumptions in order
to provide a contemporary reinterpretation of an audience enraptured by a unique form of
dramatic spectacle.
By the 1780s, the violent sport of bear baiting had largely fallen out of favour. However, although
it had ‘declined into low forms of entertainment, much beloved of butchers and draymen, [it was]
still patronised more or less furtively at Hockley by persons of high station’. Bull and bear baiting
had historically taken place on Mondays and Thursdays each week and commenced with a
lengthy parade of ornamented animals through the city’s streets, often augmented with the
presence of showmen and musicians.293 59 The exhibition of animals for entertainment purposes
continued to incite the enthusiasm of contemporary crowds, while its increasing rarity ensured a
wide public appeal based on curiosity value. Bunbury’s depiction of bear dancing takes place in a
recognisably urban location, in a busy street outside ‘The Old King of Bohemia’ Inn – a sign that
alerts the viewer to the foreign nature of the spectacle. A socially mixed crowd has gathered to
watch the impromptu performance and the print is constructed around a series of interlocking
sections that both contain and divide the audience into a series of different groups. The bear and
its master occupy the central circle of light, while behind them the outlines of buildings both
anchor and place the scene spatially.
292
Sherry, ‘Distance and Humour: The Art of Thomas Rowlandson’, 462.
150
The circularity of the composition and the presence of the chain and the stick recalls the
unpalatable fact that baited bears were attached to a staple in the performance arena or pit by a
chain measuring approximately fifteen feet in length. This enabled the defending animal to have
a measure of free movement over a circle of about thirty feet. While the bear in Bunbury’s print is
‘free’, it remains chained and mirrors the posture of the master as it stands on its hind legs and
meets his wide-eyed, theatrical gaze. Both bear and man are seen as performers involved in a
complex, symbiotic relationship with each other and with the crowd, so that all other activity within
the print assumes a subordinate importance. Interestingly, Bunbury links the socially inferior role
of the bear master with showmanship and the appeal of exciting otherness; this draws upon the
historical fact that Elizabethan bear wards were the servants of nobles and the bears were public
characters in their own right. The bear master’s supple stance, along with his swinging necktie
and wild hair emphasises movement, excitement, command and difference, while his theatrical
‘costume’ of an oversized tricorn hat and a fur-trimmed jacket identifies him as an ‘exotic’ figure.
As a form of circus performer, he is an outsider and Bunbury harnesses the idea of the psychic
power inherent in inanimate objects, costumes and various forms of disguise to hint at the
ultimate revelation of character:
Disguises, pretences, mimicry are obviously the perennial stuff of [theatre] The ‘other’ self as
[represented on the stage] may be an amusing mask […] but it can also hint at depths beneath
and be adjusted with agile ease to allow the realistic lineaments of ‘ordinary’ eighteenth century
people to emerge.294
The bear master is then linked to the long tradition of eighteenth century actors and showmen
that culminated in the amazing ‘Magus and Prospero’ Doctor James Graham.295 Like all good
showmen, the bear master commands an entourage, and this consists of at least four other
figures within the crowd who are identifiable as performers of one kind or another. These
‘In feudal days the bears were maintained, and their instructors paid, by a tax levied upon the peasantry, who were
allowed free admission to the spectacle of the baiting’. This was recorded by the poet Gay in his Trivia (1733): ‘When
through the streets, with slow and solemn air, Led by the nostril walks the muzzled bear’.
294
Worth, Sheridan and Goldsmith, 9.
295
Doctor Graham was the inventor of the ‘Celestial Bed’ and the proprietor of the ‘Temple of Health and Hymen’ opened
at the Adelphi in 1780. See Porter, ‘The Sexual Politics of James Graham,’ 200.
293
151
individuals are characterised by their plain clothes, but also by the fact that they are cast in
portions of deep shadow that heighten the sense of mystery surrounding them. To the right of the
picture a boy plays a pipe to accompany the bear’s dance, while the female figure behind him
holds a circus dog, incongruously dressed in a cloak and bonnet. Another similarly attired and
disgruntled looking animal is seen at her feet and their presence hints at the street show that will
follow the main performance of the bear dancing. Almost hidden by the central figures, a man
responsible for collecting money from the crowd passes his hat around for contributions. The
primary visual spectacle is then surrounded and lightly controlled by a loose chain of show people
dispersed amongst the crowd. These individuals mark the edges of the performance while
simultaneously containing and ‘working’ it, so that the street is transformed into a theatre in
miniature. The line demarcating the real world from that of the visual spectacle is then constantly
blurred. The impromptu audience itself appears to be both animated and engaged by the
performance and this is reflected in their various degrees of attention and reaction. The eye is
particularly drawn to a pair of plainly but well-dressed figures, viewed directly between the bear
and its master. They stare intently and directly ahead to meet the gaze of the viewer and to
include him vicariously, and symbolically, within the pictured audience’s circle.
In order to highlight the cross-class mixture of the audience, Bunbury mingles a variety of
ordinary tradesmen amongst the men and women of fashion in the crowd. The topic of random
social collision made a regular appearance in contemporary art and literature and Tobias
Smollett’s novel Humphry Clinker (1771) is especially preoccupied with the often amusing break
down of established social divisions. This fracture occurs when society metamorphoses briefly
into a crowd, located at sites of public meeting, including pleasure gardens, the theatre, or the
Spa:
Another entertainment […] arises from the general mix of all degrees assembled in our
public rooms, without distinction of rank or fortune. This is what my uncle reprobates, as
a monstrous jumble of heterogeneous principles; a vile mob of noise and impertinence,
without decency or subordination. But this chaos is to me a source of infinite
amusement.296
296
Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, 49.
152
Like the theatre or the spa town, this street then becomes the site of an unmediated mixture of
social groupings. While Ian Campbell Ross has noted that Smollett used a veneer of comedy to
disguise his genuine antagonism towards social displacement, Bunbury lacks this opinionated
edge.297 Instead, he is able to emphasise the way in which theatrical spectacle operates to
engender and forge a moment of brief inclusiveness. The print is important from a historical
perspective in its fine detailing of costume and assumed social roles, while Bunbury also delights
in the inclusion of ‘real’ people within the scene. He depicts a hollering coachman framed in the
tavern archway, while an aproned tradesman stands transfixed by the performance of the pipeplaying boy. Nearby, an attractive and fashionably dressed woman wears an accompanyingly
modish air of self-possession and sentimental detachment. She stands by the side of a rounded,
matronly figure attired in a rich fur stole and sporting the latest caleche bonnet. 298 These
fashionable females are then contrasted with the poor woman at their side. The circus dog in her
arms becomes an ironic parody of the fine lady’s absent lap dog, while her depressed expression
mirrors the picturesque, downward gaze of her social superior.
Interestingly, all three female figures are neither directly nor physically engaged in the spectacle
itself and have chosen instead to withdraw themselves emotionally and symbolically from it. It is
possible that the two socially superior females regard the bear dancing as either too exotic, or too
low, for their refined taste. Similarly, the poor woman may deem it too familiar to merit her
complete attention when her livelihood is based upon such performances. Bunbury provides
another visual contrast in the form of a fashionable couple balanced by the seated figure of a
one-legged beggar on the left-hand side of the picture. This plainly dressed, static figure leans
forward and gazes up at the dancing bear, while above him the young man places a coin into an
outstretched hat. Here, the beggar does not incite either the attention or the pity of others, but is
instead treated as a fully included member of a diverse audience engaged in viewing a spectacle.
Ian Campbell Ross, ‘Tobias Smollett: Gentleman by Birth, Education and Profession’, British Journal for Eighteenth
Century Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2, Autumn 1982, 179-189.
298
For the background on contemporary fashion, see James Laver, Costume through the Ages (London: 1964).
297
153
While he strongly resembles the disabled beggar in plate VI of William Hogarth’s Industry and
Idleness sequence (1747), there is also the possibility that he is a military veteran. Physically
disabled soldiers and sailors were portrayed with an unflinching realism in contemporary prints
and their presence was an accepted and an unquestioned fact of life.299 Here, Bunbury bestows
the man with a form of artistic dignity born of his interest in the inclusion of real, living characters
within his print.
Unlike Tobias Smollett, Bunbury lacks either the willingness or the facility to engage in incisive
political comment regarding the unmediated collision of social classes. Instead, he revels in the
portrayal of difference and the distinctions that are responsible for creating character and building
a sense of the theatrical. Bunbury also provides a commentary on human relations of power and
subservience, in which a democracy of inclusion balances the social accidents of material wealth
and birth. While individuals are aware of their place within the audience and within society at
large, they are also able to participate in indulgent and escapist forms of visual spectacle. This
means that they collude in their own transformation through a related desire to observe and to be
observed in turn. These relations are dominated by comparisons between physical, emotional
and spiritual forms of wealth and include the rich couple and the beggar, as well as the fine lady
and the poor woman with her circus dog. The bear and its master then unites and divides the two
sides of the picture, while it also provides a symbol of use and partnership for the encircled
audience itself. As eparate entities, they remain joined by a physical link in the form of the chain
and this symbolises the precarious but understood balance of power between them.
The linked and yet separate forms of the beast and the man may also refer to the idea of the dark
‘other’ that exists within each individual and the contemporary preoccupation with heightened and
299
It is interesting to speculate regarding to what extent wounded English soldiers returning from the conflicts in Iraq and
Afghanistan (specifically those who have lost limbs in roadside/suicide bombings) will soon be seen as an acknowledged
part of everyday life in this way. The public has recently been shocked into recognising the existence of a growing
number of young amputees, but this recognition is marked by extreme discomfort and reserve. The media has played a
part in gradually accustoming the general public to images of the wounded, but this portrayal is also culturally and socially
loaded. The charity ‘Help for Heroes’ in particular has caught the public imagination; this has filled the gap left by the total
absence of government funding, see www.helpforheroes.org.uk
154
sentimental feeling. The representation of the Dancing Bear may therefore be included among
other art forms that examined changing attitudes towards the treatment of animals in the late
eighteenth century. David Perkins has identified this movement as part of a larger and more
complex shift in social and cultural values towards humanitarian and sympathetic ideals and
practices:
Kindness to animals was urged and repeated in sermons, treaties, pamphlets, journals,
manuals of animal care, encyclopaedias, scientific writings, novels, literature for children,
and poems […] Certainly, many social, economic and cultural developments underlie this
literature, enabling and evoking it, and the literature itself was, of course, an additional
factor in disseminating concern for animals. The impression that there was a changing
climate of opinion is supported by the gradual waning or suppression in this period of
cock-throwing, bull-baiting, and similar sports of the common people. 300
Paradoxically, the impulses towards this form of change came from ‘the sentimental elite’
themselves, and these individuals began to urge the move away from the ‘barbaric’ sports and
pastimes of the underprivileged majority. As Peter Borsay has noted, the elite and the aspiring
middle classes ‘were increasingly withdrawing from their participation in traditional culture, which
all society had to some degree shared, and were turning to the exclusive but expanding world of
fashionable urban leisure’.301 In this way, age-old country practices and the ‘sports of the
common people’ gradually became seen as taboo. The impetus towards the rationalisation and
civilisation of these practices was then socially conditioned, as Amit S. Rai has noted:
To be at liberty to sympathise with another […] one must be free from want, from poverty,
which would seem to imply that sympathy was less a question of nature than a matter of
material, social positioning […] sympathy is always a modality of power – to exercise
sympathy is always to be in some position of privilege, however limited, however
imaginary.302
The gradual rise of the middle classes therefore led to a renegotiation of ‘court’ culture, with a
subsequent estrangement from popular pastimes and practices. Public taste altered to
accommodate the middle classes as they were taken more seriously and the audience for visual
300
David Perkins, Romanticism and Animal Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), xii.
Borsay, ‘The rise of the promenade: The social and cultural use of space in the English provincial town c.1660-1800’,
131.
302
Amit S. Rai, Rule of Sympathy: Sentiment, Race and Power 1750-1850 (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 55.
301
155
spectacle of all kinds became increasingly ‘decorous and squeamish’.303 Thus ‘cruelty’ was
condemned not due solely to a sympathy for animals, but because such impulses ‘were
potentially dangerous to human beings themselves’ in the wider social sense.304 Bunbury’s print
therefore acknowledges and addresses a number of these complex issues indirectly.
While Bunbury does not evaluate the print’s subject matter directly, he celebrates the idea of ‘low’
culture as a form of universal spectacle and portrays both the darkly repressed ‘other’ and the
innate showman in the form of the bear and its master.305 Bunbury then acts as both an arbitrator
and a detached spectator of an outmoded cultural practice and presents it as a moment of
exciting and exotic indulgence. The representatives of the privileged leisured classes witness
this, as do those who work for a living but have been momentarily seduced from their everyday
employment by the visual spectacle. While bear dancing at this time was an increasingly rare
occurrence, this also forms part of its paradoxical appeal as Bunbury places it safely in an
indistinct historical ‘past’. The image is therefore simultaneously anachronistic and a form of
guilty indulgence. Bunbury, like the curious viewer and the theatrical figure of the bear master, is
excited by the spectacle precisely because of its novelty, but also because of its deep-rooted
psychic power and unique ability to move an audience. By including fashionably dressed and
culturally curious individuals within the crowd, Bunbury identifies himself, and by intimation his
own social class, with the audience. The bear dancing is seen primarily as an opportunity to
portray an audience or a group of socially distinctive ‘characters’ held in rapt attention by a visual
performance. As an artist, Bunbury becomes an observer of observers and presents a watched
performance for the viewing pleasure of ‘another public’ or the mixed audience for his print.
This form of displacement removes the element of ‘fear’ associated with the unknown or exotic
and this heightens its value as an entertainment suitable for all classes, including the most
303
Worth, Sheridan and Goldsmith, 49.
Perkins, Romanticism and Animal Rights, 23.
The ‘development of a ‘middling’ culture, one that was to be founded in part on a renegotiation of the forms proper to
an inherited court culture, but even more so on gentlefolk’s’ increasing estrangement from the forms of crowd recreation
that constituted the culture of the common people’. Lynch, The Economy of Character: Novels, Market Culture and the
Business of Inner Meaning (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2003), 56-57.
304
305
156
decorous. The potential audience for this print includes members of Bunbury’s own social class
who share his curiosity and delight in viewing an outmoded cultural practice. However, it also
appeals directly to members of the aspirational middle classes who are seduced by the intense
visual appeal and quality of the image itself. Charles Knight’s beautifully sophisticated engraving
technique offsets and blurs the unique nature of the subject matter, so that emphasis falls on the
way in which expression, gesture and the female form are rendered. The image is suffused with
the glow of an indistinct sentimentalism and the engraver presents the viewer with a visually
‘improved’ version of England in miniature. Bunbury’s print is then a historical record, a partially
fabricated curiosity and a highly decorative object in its own right. This ambivalent inclusiveness
means that each member of Bunbury’s socially disparate audience was equally pleased with what
it saw, and especially with what it believed it was able to read into the print.
Conclusion
Contemporary audiences deemed Bunbury’s two prints A Visit to the Camp and A Dancing Bear
to be both fashionable and innovatory. Each image detailed a performance that symbolically took
place outside the confines of a conventional theatre space. These performances were staged by
relative ‘outsiders’ in the form of military and circus figures as members of the elite and unknown
‘other’, while the audiences were characterised by their socially disparate nature. The act of
spectating therefore ensured that hierarchical distinctions were momentarily lost as identities
merged in the collective act of viewing. Just as reality was transformed into spectacle by the
operation of art, so a rigidly structured society was translated into an audience and a shared
community of viewers through the act of spectating and of ‘feeling’ patriotism. While the civilian
and military worlds represented related mediums of dramatic social expression, so visual
spectacle offered the reflection of an exchange with real life. As an artist, Bunbury was able to
capitalise upon the clash of social and visual incongruity in order to create a highly commercial
and attractive product suitable for widespread contemporary consumption. His prints were
refreshingly uncomplicated and expressive of a child-like enthusiasm for narrative, fairytale and
the theatrical.
157
Bunbury does not judge the audience because he strongly identifies himself with the figure of the
viewer and the passive, consuming observer. He therefore represented visual spectacle from his
own excited vantagepoint and configured the audience accordingly. While a lack of incisive
social comment during a time of change smacks of cultural absenteeism, Bunbury’s energetic
enthusiasm momentarily transcended considerations of class, in the same way that being part of
an audience did. Bunbury conformed to his own social class in creating visual spectacle for the
consumption of an external audience, but he also chose to remain a member of the ‘curious’
audience. This impulse of selfless social solidarity was not altogether uncomplicated, but it
reflected Bunbury’s talent for dramatic characterisation and also his broadly humanitarian
credentials. Ronald Paulson has noted that: ‘Rowlandson, although he often places us inside the
crowd, in fact always sees it from the outside’.306 Bunbury is less cerebral in his approach and
rather than dealing in the psychology of the watchers and the watched, he creates a satisfyingly
complete world of performance for the viewer. In Bunbury’s prints the crowd is composed of
disparate elements, but it is always united in its desire to belong to an ‘audience’ and to take part
in a shared psychological response to visual stimuli.
158
CHAPTER 4
THE INDULGENT ENGLISHMAN: THE NOBLE ACTOR AND SOCIAL ROLE PLAY
Introduction
In this chapter I argue that amateur theatricals represented an attempt by the fashionable elite to
create an indulgent form of escapism that both confirmed and consolidated their cultural and
social superiority. By manufacturing an ‘in-house’ variety of entertainment, the socially privileged
were able to perform with friends in front of an audience composed entirely of individuals drawn
from a similar class. This static microcosm of society was established and consolidated by a
complex system of social role-play. Bunbury’s enthusiasm for the theatre is reflected in many of
his prints and the subject of dramatic role-play is examined through his sustained involvement in
the amateur theatricals at Wynnstay. My argument will be illustrated with five main prints
published between 1781 and 1785, chosen to reflect different aspects of the discussion regarding
class and social belonging raised by amateur theatricals. I argue that Bunbury assumes the roles
of a manager of ‘stage effects’ and an insightful audience member in his approach to art and this
enables him to be both involved with, and detached from, the subjects he depicts. In Bunbury’s
prints, social role-play is configured as entertainment, instruction and decoration and as the
socially and artistically omniscient creator, Bunbury dictates the way in which they should be
viewed.
The chosen prints provide contrasting examples of social disguise and role play, but each
contains an oblique moral message in a reflection of William Hogarth’s graphic ‘modern moral’
stories.307 Bunbury’s print Lord Derby following Miss Farren (1781) examines play-acting in its
depiction of an amateur actor physically transformed by an excess of socially ‘inappropriate’
dramatic feeling. In addressing the relationship between a member of the upper class and a
professional actress, the ideas of social displacement and anonymity are also explored. The print
Sir Gregory Gigg (1781) represents a form of companion piece to Lord Derby. In this image, the
306
Ronald Paulson, Representations of Revolution 1789-1820 (Yale: Yale University Press: 1983), 157.
159
role-play is reversed so that a fictitious middle class character is metamorphosed into an
attractive and idealistically ‘classless’ social icon by the transformative power of theatrical pose
and costume. The four prints in the Hints to Bad Horsemen series (1781) provide a close
examination of the themes of social aspiration, belonging and exclusion through the prism of
amateur horsemanship. The comedy of equestrian skill as an indicator of social standing and
merit is contrasted with the tragedy of The Inflexible Porter (1783). This print focuses on the
reversal of roles that takes place when a social inferior adopts the manners and attitude of his
upper class employer. Finally, City Foulers – Mark! (1785) examines the adoption of alternative
social identities and the revelation of essential natures as a consequence of role-play. I suggest
that Bunbury presents theatrical role-play as a universal character trait and that the impulse
towards theatrical self-expression and disguise is classless. In Bunbury’s vision, the dramatic
impulse reflects an individual’s humanity and communal belonging, but the act of role-play itself
becomes part of a hierarchical structure. The fact remains that while play-acting and the
assumption of an alternative identity is egalitarian, Bunbury ultimately conforms to his social
conditioning in pronouncing some classes to be more accomplished than others.
English amateur theatricals in the 1780s
The English aristocracy was consumed with a craze for amateur theatricals that reached its peak
in the 1780s.308 Contemporary observers noted that this form of acting had become a measure of
fashionable social standing: ‘the rage for dramatic entertainments in private families has
increased astonishingly; scarce a man of rank but either has or pretends to have his petit
theatre’.309 Socially privileged and enthusiastic amateurs spent vast sums of money in converting
existing buildings or erecting purpose-built theatres on their estates and employed scene painters
307
See Ronald Paulson, Hogarth’s Graphic Works, Vol. 1, The ‘Modern Moral Subject’, 1697-1732 (London, 1991).
The craze for amateur theatricals: ‘reached its climax in the 1780s, declined somewhat in the 1790s, increased again
slightly in the first decade of the 19th century and, after that, petered out’. Sybil Rosenfeld, Temples of Thespis: Some
Private Theatres and Theatricals in England and Wales, 1700-1820 (London: The Society for Theatre Research, 1978),
11.
309
London Post, 5 November 1776.
308
160
and skilled craftsmen to recreate the atmosphere of the London stage. 310 They also purchased
elaborate costumes and persuaded professional actors to provide them with coaching, all of
which added to the creation of a convincingly realistic end product. Amateur theatricals became
an eagerly anticipated event in the social calendar and the éclat attached to the possession of
tickets for the most exclusive and sumptuous performances was enormous. Audiences at these
events were handpicked and included members of the Royal family, with the Prince of Wales an
especially enthusiastic supporter. At the peak of amateur theatrical mania the country boasted
around 120 private theatres and these produced an average run of two plays per year. Elaborate
suppers and balls augmented the entertainment provided by the aristocratic companies and these
proved to be a fertile source of gossip for the weekly newspapers. The English reading public
was hungry for details regarding the costumes and conversation of those attending and this
conformed to the growing awareness of a proto-celebrity culture.311
The rage for amateur theatricals offered some of the country’s richest men an excuse to spend
ostentatiously and the extravagant Earl of Barrymore invested over £60,000 in building ‘the most
splendid theatre in the kingdom’ at Wargrave. This theatre opened in January 1789 and
performances continued to draw an exclusive clientele until the enthusiastically performing Earl
was overtaken by debt in June 1792. The Duke of Richmond, although he did not act himself,
followed the trend and adapted part of his home into a theatre in which ‘the stage is the floor –
and the Orchestra is sunk into the room below it – and so, in the same manner is the pit’.312
Despite the fact that the stage was a mere nineteen feet wide, the surroundings were luxurious,
with boxes, a balcony and backed and lined seats. In 1787 and 1788, the Duke organised a
number of spectacular performances at Richmond House and these were witnessed by a
specially selected audience of the fashionable elite, led by the King, the Queen and the Prince of
310
Elsewhere, the Earl of Sandwich held notable amateur theatrical performances at Hinchingbrook during 1786 and 1787
at the ‘Prince’s theatre’ with ‘His Royal Highness’ Company of Comedians’. The Duke of Bedford’s theatre at Woburn
Abbey operated regularly from 1744 until 1857.
311
See Cheryl Wanko, Roles of Authority: Thespian Biography and Celebrity in Eighteenth Century Britain (Texas: Texas
Tech University Press, 2003) and the discussion of Garrick and celebrity in Lance Bertelsen, ‘David Garrick and English
Painting’, in Eighteenth Century Studies, Vol. II, No. 3, 1978, 308-324. Also, Anthony Stringnell, ‘Diderot, Garrick, and the
Maturity of the Artist’, British Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1, Spring 1987.
312
World, 23rd January 1788.
161
Wales. As the titled ‘manager’ of an amateur company, the Duke of Richmond entered fully into
the spirit of theatrical performance and employed the professional actress Elizabeth Farren to
assist in coaching the aristocratic cast members while Mrs. Siddons took on the role of costume
advisor.313 The capacity of the theatre was limited to 150 and the Duke devised an elaborate
system of ticket distribution to avoid the ‘intrusion of improper company’. As Sybil Rosenfeld has
noted, this involved an established and rigorous hierarchy of invitation:
both tickets and printing varied in colour for the different performances, those for the
rehearsal being distinguished by a green seal. For their own guests, the Duke and
Duchess had a printed form of invitation on which they merely filled the name, and the
Prince of Wales had a ticket to admit himself and his friends at all three performances. 314
The presence of socially inferior or ‘improper company’ at amateur theatrical performances was a
cause of concern for many contemporaries. The theatre was seen as a location for the
indiscriminate and unregulated mixture of classes and this element of license was linked by some
to the degeneration in moral standards and the breakdown of social distinction. In a series of
verbal and literary attacks, critics accused amateur participants of moral and social corruption and
branded the theatres in which they practiced as sites of licentiousness and depravity. In his
essay Theatrico Mania, the Reverend Richard Graves’ argument centred on the hazardous
collision between the social elite and the working classes and the subsequent corruption of
distinct ‘natural’ rural and urban habitats. While acknowledging the popularity of amateur
theatricals, he warned that dramatic indulgence and the evils of metropolitan social exchange
would lead ultimately to the degradation of rural retreats and the danger of ‘intrigue, and
elopements, and improper marriages’.315 Graves proposed that resistance should consist of rigid
social control and a conscious rejection of the extremes of London theatrical fashion. The key to
the retention of accepted class distinction then lay in the affirmation of difference and the creation
of an alternative and unique form of gentlemanly or amateur theatre. Graves stressed that this
Miss Farren acted at Drury Lane from 1778. See William Le Fanu (ed.) Betsy Sheridan’s Journal: Letters from
Sheridan’s Sister 1784-86 and 1788-1790 (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1968).
314
Sybil Rosenfeld, Temples of Thespis: Some Private Theatres and Theatricals in England and Wales, 1700-1820
(London: The Society for Theatre Research, 1978), 37.
315
See Rev. Richard Graves, Senilities (London, 1801).
313
162
should remain situationally divorced from the morally dubious and socially mixed nature of the
professional theatre.
The Haymarket manager and actor Richard Cumberland also contributed to the debate with an
essay entitled ‘Remarks upon the Present Taste for Acting Private Plays’. He believed that the
proponents of amateur theatricals should not seek to slavishly imitate the imperfections of a
central metropolitan example, but should instead create an entity that reflected the essential
nature of its creators. The approximation of elite social characteristics would be set within the
unique holding framework of an alternative form of theatre. It was envisaged that this would be:
a model new, original, and peculiar to themselves; so industriously distinguished from our
public play-houses, as they should not strike the eye […] like a copy in miniature, but as
the independent sketch of a master who disdains to copy. 316
While indulging their desire to assume different dramatic roles, the ruling elite would retain an
element of dignity and most importantly, of control. By acknowledging the simplicity and the
inferiority of the ‘original’ model, the upper classes asserted their social and artistic superiority
and controlled the elements of license that made the theatre so dangerous. The fear felt by
contemporaries therefore centred on the lack of rigorous class differentiation and the blurring of
the boundaries between the professional and the amateur, the real and the imagined. Gillen
Darcy Wood has noted that the demarcation between these opposites was often unclear:
In a culture fascinated by the ambiguous sign of the mask, the line dividing life-like
theatre and theatricalised real life could on occasion be literally crossed. In one Garrickproduced stage pageant of London life, the rear wall of Drury Lane was opened to a view
of passers-by on the street, creating a seamless link between the real London and its
theatrical simulation.317
Richard Cumberland viewed the deliberate confusion of social boundaries as subversive and
potentially destructive of the precarious balance that existed between the classes. The collision
Richard Cumberland, ‘Remarks Upon the Present Taste for Acting Private Plays’ in the European Magazine (August,
1788).
317
Wood, The Shock of the Real: Romanticism and Visual Culture, 1760-1860, 48-49.
316
163
between actors and the ruling classes, the waged artist and the unpaid enthusiast, was as fraught
with anticipation and excitement as it was with tension. There was a curious attraction between
these polar opposites and a certain ambiguity remained regarding the social status of those who
were merely ‘acting’. In this way, actors bore responsibility for making the stage ‘seductive’.
John Brewer has said that a combination of ‘their glamour and beauty, the virtuosity of their
performances, their private lives, at once the focus of polite society and yet disreputably on its
margins,’ all contributed to make the stage a dangerous place.318
Cumberland identified amateur theatricals as the catalyst responsible for the negative
transformation of a lady into ‘an actress’ and he saw this change as a process of profound
corruption:
I revolt with indignation from the idea of a lady of fashion being tramelled in the trickery of
the stage, and taught her airs and graces, till she is made the facsimile of a mannerist
[…] Let none such be consulted in dressing or drilling an honorary novitiate in the forms
and fashions of the public stage […] the fine lady will be disqualified by copying the
actress, and the actress will become ridiculous by aping the fine lady.319
By using this example, Cumberland linked amateur theatre with vice, and more importantly with a
loss of appropriately observed social definition. He believed that amateurs should shrink from the
destruction of difference and should strive instead to reproduce their own uniqueness as a form of
talisman: ‘to familiarise and assimilate their whole conduct and conversation through the progress
of the drama to the manners and habits of well-bred persons in real life’. Cumberland
acknowledged the professional limitations of amateur actors, while simultaneously asserting their
social superiority. He also believed that an observance and consciousness of class distinction
should remain of paramount importance even during acts of imaginative abandonment and
dramatic indulgence.
318
Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English culture in the eighteenth century, 334.
Richard Cumberland, ‘Remarks Upon the Present Taste for Acting Private Plays’ in the European Magazine (August
1788).
319
164
The maintenance of dignity and the assertion of social superiority were issues that exercised
many contemporary commentators, especially during occasions in which social mixture and forms
of class trespass were anticipated. The performing Earl of Barrymore enjoyed the society of
actors and as a generous host and employer he was depicted in satirical prints as ‘the Maecenas
of Scrubs and Scaramouches’.320 At his theatre in Wargrave, he continued his familiarity with the
lower classes and it was noted that ‘inferior people including servant maids, dairy wenches,
shepherds and plough boys’ attended the dress rehearsals held prior to the main performance.
The mixed company indulged in a partially symbiotic relationship in which the country people
laughed at the antics of the fine ladies and gentlemen on the stage, while ‘the elite found
entertainment in listening to the remarks of the yokels from the vantage point of the side boxes’.
John Brewer has observed that ‘the theatre was more than a play or even a performance by a
group of actors; it was the place in which players and spectators colluded in a pleasurable
deception’.321 In an extension and a reversal of this form of entertainment, Sybil Rosenfeld has
noted that the Earl of Barrymore and his friends often indulged themselves in taking the game of
social difference to an entirely different level. They adopted disguises ‘in order to overhear [the
lower classes’] remarks upon the performances; and with the more objectionable of these they
would regale the party at supper’.322
The opinions of the socially uneducated and ill-informed became the subject of ‘after-dinner jokes’
and this undermined the validity of their response. These patterns of upper class behaviour were
extensions of the action on stage and the Earl of Barrymore even disguised himself to appear as
a collector of tickets at the theatre door. While the lower classes witnessed their social superiors’
acting on stage, so the upper classes were able to indulge themselves in performing before an
appreciative and largely uncritical audience. Privileged social status and public notoriety
operated to guarantee a positive reception and the presence of carefully positioned ‘friends’ acted
as a shield against an unmediated public response. These specially prepared individuals were
320
Rosenfeld, Temples of Thespis: Some Private Theatres and Theatricals in England and Wales, 1700-1820, 17.
Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English culture in the eighteenth century, 350.
322
Rosenfeld, Temples of Thespis: Some Private Theatres and Theatricals in England and Wales, 1700-1820, 25.
321
165
able to temper the unpredictable or negative crowd reactions during important performances by
well-established actors. Betsy Sheridan witnessed a play in which the reaction of the audience
was anticipated and subsequently balanced by well-rehearsed and strategically placed
individuals: ‘Mrs. Siddons made her first appearance to-night […] I find she was very ill received
as a Riot was expected, however, they had taken care to provide friends to drown the Hiss’.323
The relationship between actors and audience was highly mediated, but all social ranks gained
pleasure from the act of watching and being watched in a relationship that was mutually curious.
At Richmond House, the unmediated and chaotic mixture of different social classes took on a
different guise. One of the principal actors in the Duke’s company of amateurs, the Earl of Derby,
was romantically linked with the professional actress Elizabeth Farren. Their affair was the
subject of intense public interest and kept gossipmongers entertained until the death of the Earl’s
wife in 1797 when they finally married. In her role as theatrical advisor to the company, Elizabeth
Farren was often in the Earl’s company and newspapers and print sellers made much of their
close association. It is significant that the liaison added an element of fascination to the theatrical
performances at Richmond House. Contemporary newspapers reported that: ‘it was common
knowledge at the time that [Miss Farren] owed her appointment to the Earl of Derby and she was
made much of’.324 Elizabeth Farren’s association with a member of the nobility operated as a
social talisman and while it did not prevent her image from appearing in the print shops, it did not
deter attendance at her performances by a socially decorous audience, including the Royal
family. For an actress, social acceptance and belonging was based upon the possession of a
talent for mimicry, a sophisticated appreciation of style and a constant awareness of
presentation.325
James Boswell noted that ‘we may be in some degree whatever character we choose’ and a
professional actress was occasionally granted the license to occupy different social worlds
William Le Fanu (ed.) Betsy Sheridan’s Journal: Letters from Sheridan’s Sister 1784-1786 and 1788-1790 (London:
Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1960), 31. 5 October 1784.
324
The Times, 20 April 1787.
323
166
simultaneously. Elizabeth Farren was perceived by the upper classes as a strangely hybrid and
rank-less individual, but she has been linked by Gillen Darcy Wood to Guy Debord’s theory
regarding the ‘society of spectacle’ and the phenomenon of media fame: ‘Media stars are
spectacular representations of living human beings, distilling the essence of the spectacle’s
banality into images of possible roles’.326 Miss Farren represented the reverse of Cumberland’s
argument in which a fine lady was corrupted into an actress. Her connection with the Earl of
Derby meant that she moved in socially privileged circles, but it was observed that ‘she hit off the
air of a woman of fashion exactly and [was not] out of her sphere in the most brilliant company’.327
John Brewer has noted that social acceptance for an actor was based on an ability to ‘display the
refined attributes of a gentleman or lady’ and this extended into every aspect of their lives. As the
most high profile actor in the eighteenth century, David Garrick owned a house that reflected his
social pretensions. It was ‘a display cabinet of good taste, a little theatre in which he could
perform the part of a connoisseur and gentleman’.328 As the most accomplished member of the
Duke of Richmond’s company, Elizabeth Farren’s consummate professionalism meant that she
‘owned’ a certain sphere of performance and that she was equally comfortable in the roles of
drama coach, pursued woman, actress and lady of fashion.329
The popular press was fascinated by the ease with which different social ranks were able to
assume alternative roles and disguise themselves. This facility was deemed particularly marked
among members of the upper classes that were able to assume a number of conflicting roles
simultaneously. What Gillen Darcy Wood has called ‘the close and conscious connection […]
between painting, masquerade, and the theatre’ was reflected in the public fascination with playacting and disguise, while the temporary immersion in another’s identity became an elaborate
325
See the discussion of female celebrity in Wanko, Roles of Authority: Thespian Biography and Celebrity in Eighteenth
Century Britain.
326
Guy Debord, Society of Spectacle, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (New York: Zone Books, 1994), 38.
327
Henry Meister, Letters Written During a Residence in England (1799), 202.
328
Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English culture in the eighteenth century, 419.
329
This was managed perfectly by Mrs. Siddons who re-invented herself as a domestic paragon. For an interesting
narrative on another actress, see Claire Tomalin, Mrs. Jordan’s Profession: The Story of a Great Actress and the Future
King (London: Penguin, 1994). Mrs. Jordan was drawn by Bunbury and appears in As You Like It (1795), which was
dedicated to her ‘in gratitude for the Pleasure received from her Inimitable Performance as Rosalind’.
167
form of visual game.330 The socially privileged were especially adept at role-play and an
audience composed of friends and class equals judged the actors’ performance. Although
amateurs could not compete with professionals regarding the quality of their acting, they were
able to excel in the richness and magnificence of their external appearance. Costumes were
created using the finest and most expensive materials and as an extension of the visual
spectacle, scenery and props were designed and painted by the most fashionable artists. In the
environment of the theatre, the suspension of disbelief gave way to the marvel of excess as the
make believe elements of drama were tangibly realised. In their disguised forms, amateur actors
were transformed into animated fashion plates so that the attention of the audience fell on the
luxurious nature of the visual spectacle, rather than on the dramatic performance itself.
Newspaper reviews reported and encouraged the public appetite for fashion and visual stimuli
and delivered highly detailed eyewitness accounts of the costumes worn by the fashionable elite,
both on the stage and off it. As reviewers satisfied the voracious appetites of all classes for
descriptions of the clothes and accessories worn by the socially privileged actors and audience,
so the amateur stage became even more decisively identified with an arena of ostentatious
display. Those who attended select theatrical performances were also those who promenaded in
parks and visited places of fashionable resort and they were eager to see and to be seen. Critics
regarded this visually motivated behaviour as shallow and morally bankrupt, but the actor John
Philip Kemble redressed the argument with praise for the amateurs’ sense of style. The
assumption of effortless stylishness underlined an aspect of social superiority and linked
theatricals with a form of cultural segregation: ‘what could equal such an amusement in the
circles of fashion, limiting its indulgence strictly to their own rank?’331 The closed, nepotistic
nature of amateur theatricals therefore ensured that each performance was a vibrant and selfcontained spectacle.
330
331
Wood, The Shock of the Real: Romanticism and Visual Culture, 1760-1860, 48.
J. Boaden (ed.), Memoirs of the Life of J. P. Kemble (1825), I, 432.
168
The closed and exclusive nature of amateur theatricals extended into a widespread belief in their
superiority to other forms of dramatic performance. Amateur actors were considered more
capable of producing reflections of their socially privileged selves than the professionals were.
Ironically, it was believed that lavish costumes symbolised a restrained and refined sense of taste
and that exhibitionism enabled the owners’ essential natures to be revealed, rather than
obscured. The psychic power of costume was also linked with the ability of the actor to convince
the audience to believe in an alternative and parallel existence. Acting was therefore not seen as
a form of lying or concealing an elemental truth, but of triumphantly displaying a talent for
reproducing and mimicking reality. After an evening at Richmond House, the amateur actress
Mrs. Bruce was congratulated on her performance by a Countess who also remarked ironically on
the facility with which she moved between different social ranks: ‘My dear, if I did not know you to
be a gentlewoman, I should swear you were a born chamber-maid’.332 Amateurs found the
adoption of varied and unaccustomed roles attractive precisely because of the sense of liberation
that they experienced in the act of forgetting their own existence. The ability to convince and to
deceive through acting then gave the amateur practitioners a degree of open-ended and classbased license. Contemporary reviewers noted that the aristocracy was vindicated in its ability to
play ‘not only the roles in which they were themselves, but those to which they were much
addicted from lower life’.333 In acting, as in life, the privileged elite asserted their dominant social
status.
The idea of a universal freedom of portrayal operated to further reinforce distinctions based
predominantly on class. As an enthusiastic theatre-goer, Horace Walpole felt that the role of the
amateur actor was to produce accurate reflections of himself. He believed that ‘when people of
quality can act, they must act their own parts so much better than others can mimic them’.334
Walpole subsequently assigned a particular role to each social class, with the implicit assumption
that they should confine themselves exclusively to it. This attitude was based on the assumption
332
Morning Chronicle, 18 April 1787.
Morning Chronicle, 18 April 1787.
334
Walpole, Letters, XIV, 39.
333
169
that subject experts drawn from each class would necessarily engender a series of specialist
mimics. Lord Derby was one such example and when he played the leading role in The Wonder
at Richmond House, the Town and Country Magazine observed admiringly that he had
reproduced his own likeness in giving the audience ‘an elegant and accurate exhibition of a man
of fashion and feeling’.335 Social exclusivity also operated to reinforce the manufacture of
division, so that while the upper classes were able to play themselves, it was expected that
professional actors should play the lower classes. Horace Walpole and Richard Cumberland
attended theatrical performances on a regular basis and they emphasised the view that socially
privileged amateur actors from high life made perfect mimics of their own kind, whereas
professional actors were merely copyists of an unreachable social ideal. This theory was based
on a comfortable and unchallenged view of society, in which every aspect was stratified and
subject to the operation of a hierarchical system of belief. Walpole therefore viewed amateur
theatricals and the complex game of disguise as pleasing forms of ‘in-house’ entertainment:
I am very far from tired, Madam, of encomiums on the performances at Richmond House
[…] Who should act genteel comedy perfectly but people of fashion that have sense?
Actors and actresses can only guess at the tone of high life.336
Bunbury and the theatricals at Wynnstay
Members of Bunbury’s family exhibited a sustained interest in the theatre and Bunbury displayed
a well-developed appreciation for drama from a relatively early age. Bunbury’s father, Sir William,
made the acquaintance of the actor David Garrick and his fashionable elder brother Thomas
‘Charles’ shared a passion for drama with his wife, Lady Sarah Lennox. 337 As a young woman,
Lady Sarah had developed an enthusiasm for amateur theatricals and she was encouraged in
this by her uncle, Henry Fox. She took a role in the play Jane Shore in 1761 and Horace Walpole
was afterwards moved to write a glowing report of the performance: ‘ [Lady Sarah and Lady
335
Town and Country Magazine, May 1788, 210.
Walpole, Letters, XIV, 2, 8. Letter to the Countess of Upper Ossory.
Letters between Sir William Bunbury and David Garrick testify to the fact that they were on reasonably cordial terms.
See the letter dated 1752, David Garrick to Sir William Bunbury in Bunbury (ed.), The Correspondence of Sir Thomas
Hanmer, Bart., 348. See also the Countess of Ilchester, The Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox 1745-1826, 2 Vols.
Lady Sarah Lennox (1745-1826) was the daughter of the Duke of Richmond and married Charles Bunbury in 1762. She
336
337
170
Susan Fox-Strangways] were delightful and acted with so much nature and simplicity that they
appeared the very things they represented, and Lady Sarah was more beautiful than you can
conceive’.338 Lady Sarah’s involvement in acting projects continued after her marriage and her
enthusiasm was conveyed in letters in which she mentions Bunbury as a co-actor in her many
dramatic projects:339
Ste[phen Fox], Charles [Bunbury], Lady Mary [Fitzpatrick];340 Lord Carlisle, Harry
Bunbury, & I &c., are to act two plays at Winterslow next month.341 […] Charles [acts]
Anthony & the Copper Captain […] & I, Cleopatra & Estifanie, which is a part I doat upon;
if we succeed I will give you an account of it. 342
Lady Sarah’s letters testify to the fact that the Holland family and their friends utilised their house
at Winterslow for amateur theatricals several years prior to the public opening of the playhouse to
in October 1768. Performances were successfully staged at Winterslow between 1769 and 1774
and these represented a significant social event in the lives of a carefully selected audience of
provincial gentry.343 Despite its brief existence, Winterslow made a lasting impression on many
contemporaries and its reputation was augmented by the all-inclusive nature of the entertainment
that it provided: ‘The theatre was filled each night with guests […] When they had taken their
seats, tea was handed round whilst the band played for about an hour, and after the play had
ended about nine, the company returned to the house for a cold collation’.344
Bunbury’s early exposure to drama and amateur theatrical performances had a profound effect
on his personal and artistic development. The theatre provided him with an outlet for his creative
energy and encouraged the talent for verbal and artistic mimicry that became a constant and
eloped with her cousin Lord Gordon in 1768 and had an illegitimate child, Louisa Bunbury (1769-1785). She was
divorced in 1776.
338
Walpole, Correspondence, 135 note. Walpole to George Montagu, 22 January 1761.
339
‘I have sent you a paper about acting plays: I hope you’ll approve of it’. Lady Sarah Lennox to Lady Susan
Strangways, 26 January 1762. Ilchester, The Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox 1745-1826, I, 119.
340
Lady Mary Fitzpatrick was the daughter of the Earl of Upper Ossory and married Stephen Fox in 1766. Lord Holland
gave them Winterslow House in Wiltshire and the couple staged private performances there from this time and used an
adjacent building as a ‘theatre’ from 1768.
341
For further information on Winterslow, see Rosenfeld, Temples of Thespis: Some Private Theatres and Theatricals in
England and Wales, 1700-1820, 124-7.
342
Ilchester, The Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox 1745-1826, I, 198. Lady Sarah Bunbury to Lady Susan O’Brien,
Barton, 7 July 1766.
343
Following the last performance in 1774, both the theatre and house were consumed by fire. Stephen Fox himself died
in December that year.
171
defining feature of his personality and art. Following his father’s death in 1764, Bunbury
continued the family intimacy with the actor David Garrick who became a regular guest at Barton
after Bunbury’s marriage in 1771.345 The Bunburys’ social circle also included the cultural
luminaries William Goldsmith and Sir Joshua Reynolds and these individuals symbolised the
cultural establishment of the previous generation. 346 By selecting the company of these men,
Bunbury underscored his enthusiasm for art and literature, but also his unwillingness to venture
outside certain established and safe limits. Despite his well-known relaxed and independent
approach to life, he also craved the approval and psychological indulgence of those who dictated
the prevailing cultural benchmark. Reynolds, Garrick and Goldsmith represented a powerful
triumvirate whose interpretation of art was characterised by a basic conservatism. Bunbury’s
work was unconsciously tailored to appeal to an audience reluctant to relinquish its cultural
supremacy during a time of increased social and national insecurity.
Bunbury’s membership of the establishment elite was confirmed with his appointment as Equerry
to the Duke of York in 1787. The novelist Frances Burney met him at Windsor during the early
part of his tenure and she made a series of shrewd observations on his character and motivation.
Bunbury’s favourite topics of conversation were ‘all concerning plays and players […] Mrs.
Siddons and Mrs. Jordan, Le Tessier and Shakespeare, - these were […] descanted upon with
great warmth and animation’. 347 Frances Burney also found that Bunbury’s character and
manners were intensely theatrical and that his passion for acting bordered on religious zeal:
344
Rosenfeld, Temples of Thespis: Some Private Theatres and Theatricals in England and Wales, 1700-1820, 125.
The Bunburys were on terms of great intimacy with Garrick and Goldsmith, both of whom wrote poems in praise of
them. See Garrick’s The Old Painter’s Soliloquy on seeing Mr. Bunbury’s Drawings (1774), also George M. Kahrl &
Rachel McClellan, The Correspondence of James Boswell with David Garrick, Edmund Burke and Edmond Malone
(London: Heinemann, 1986).
346
Sir Joshua Reynolds came from Plympton in Devon where the family of Bunbury’s wife lived. Sir Joshua socialised
with Sir Edmund Burke who was appointed a guardian of the Horneck family following the death of Captain Kane William
Horneck. He also dined with Mrs. Horneck and her children, Catherine, Charles (a famous Macaroni and school friend of
Bunbury’s) and Mary (who married Colonel Gwynne, soldier and Equerry at the same time as Bunbury) in London. The
Gwynne moved to Barton and took a large part in bringing up the Bunbury’s second son, Henry Edward, Sir Joshua’s
godchild. An undated pen and ink sketch, Inscribed by Horace Walpole Dr Goldsmith, drawn and etched by Mr. Bunbury
is in the collection of W. S. Lewis. This etching was used as a frontispiece to Goldsmith’s poetic epistle A Haunch of
Venison, published in London in 1776.
347
See Barrett (ed.), The Diary and Letters of Madame D’Arblay, II, 398. Wednesday 15th July 1787.
345
172
Plays and players seem his darling theme; he can rave about them from morning till
night, and yet be ready to rave again when morning returns. He acts as he talks, spouts
as he recollects, and seems to give his whole soul to dramatic feeling and expression.348
Bunbury’s genuine fervour was accompanied by an absolute belief in the power of theatre to
transport an audience and to create an alternative state of being. This idealistic view of drama
was fed and channeled into the amateur theatrical performances held at Wynnstay, in which he
was involved from an early date. Bunbury’s friend and contemporary, Sir Watkin Williams Wynn,
who he drew in 1786, was a member of the Dilettanti Society and the model of a benevolent rural
squire.349 60 As a keen amateur actor, he modified a building on his estate to become one of the
first purpose-built playhouses in the country and employed Roger Johnstone of Drury Lane to
create the theatre and paint scenery between 1771 and 1772. 350 Following the completion of the
theatre and its opening to the public, a contemporary noted admiringly that ‘the worthy Baronet’s
Theatre is finished in a most elegant style, and is as complete for its size as any of the Royal
Houses. It contains about 300 persons’.351 The Wrexham Players were the first company to
perform at Wynnstay with The Merchant of Venice in 1771 and they were followed in 1773 by Sir
Watkin’s own amateur cast in The Merry Wives of Windsor.352
Sir Watkin gathered together a company of enthusiastic non-professionals, consisting of local
gentry, friends, and most interestingly, a large number of estate employees. 353 His neighbour,
Philip Yorke also took part in amateur theatricals at neighbouring nearby Erddig House and both
men were renowned for the enlightened and inclusive treatment of their servants. 354 As
benevolent rural squires, Sir Watkin and Mr. Yorke sponsored, celebrated and utilised the varied
Barrett, The Diary and Letters of Madame D’Arblay, II, 411-412. Tuesday 21st July 1787.
See also Gillray’s image of the next generation of Watkin Williams Wynns in A Welch Tandem (1807). For Bunbury’s
involvement in the Wynnstay theatre, see Cecil Price, ‘Eighteenth Century Playbills of the English theatre in Wales,’
National Library of Wales Journal, 6 (1950), 260-67. Sir Watkin Williams Wynn (1749-1789) was MP for Denbighshire.
The Bunburys were distantly related to the Williams Wynn family as Sir William Williams Wynn, son of Kyffin, married
Mary Bunbury. See Burke’s Peerage (London, 1888), 1499-1500.
350
Mark Girouard, Life in the English Country House (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1978), 236.
Johnstone’s efforts were recorded in the detailed account books of the butler, Samuel Sidebotham, now in the National
Library of Wales, Wynnstay ms. 102, pp. 1, 5, 10.
351
Morning Post, 26 January 1785.
352
The European Magazine, November 1787.
353
The domestics and retainers were distinguished in the playbills by the omission of Mr. before their names. Rosenfeld,
Temples of Thespis: Some Private Theatres and Theatricals in England and Wales, 1700-1820, 79.
354
Philip Yorke (1743-1804) commissioned portraits of his servants and commemorated their virtues in poetry. See
Merlin Waterson, The Servants’ Hall: A Domestic History of Erddig (London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1980).
348
349
173
musical and dramatic talents of their employees. Sir Watkin’s butler Sidebotham was a regular
actor, as was Carter the cook, while Sir Watkin funded the vocal training of the cooper,
Meredith.355 The company was well organised with Sir Watkin as its manager and an agent to
approach professional actors as augmentees. The performances at Wynnstay theatre were
noted to be ‘of the very best description, principally of Shakespeare’s plays’ but also pantomime
and farce.356 Plays were chosen expressly to appeal to a wide range of audience members and
their lighthearted nature reinforced the fact that the theatre provided a form of harmless winter
entertainment. Farce was experienced as a particularly enjoyable means of diversion as it was ‘a
thing without plot, character, sentiment, or invention; yet, by means of ludicrous mistakes, and
absurd dialogues, irresistibly comic’.357 This form of dramatic performance was linked with the
amateur pursuit of artistic ‘caricaturing’ as a means of curing the seasonal ‘hipps and vapours’.358
The theatricals at Wynnstay represented an extension of Sir Watkin’s character and hospitality
and that of like-minded friends such as Bunbury. They were also eagerly anticipated by those
living in rural Wales. A contemporary noted that the theatricals were able to ‘soften the gloom
and horrors of winter, and diffuse innocent amusement at a festival season peculiarly set apart for
relaxation’.359
Despite its avowed purpose of communal entertainment, the Wynnstay theatre represented a
hugely ambitious undertaking by Sir Watkin. Elisabeth J. Heard has stated that during the height
of its popularity it was deemed ‘one of the largest in terms of size of the theatre, the frequency
and elaborateness of the productions, and the range of the repertory’. Quite aside from the tight
schedule and ambitious range of the plays produced, the maintenance of the theatre also entailed
a series of complex social and economic implications. Sir Watkin’s account books record a
bewildering list of costs relating to the provision of scene-painting, carpentry services, food, fuel,
I have located a copy of a sketch by Bunbury entitled Mr. Meredith on the internet. In Thomas Carter’s account book
for 1780, Meredith was paid 10 guineas for his performance. Wynnstay ms. 103.
356
Charles James Apperley, My Life and Times (London, 1842), 298. Quoted in Alan Bird, ‘The Theatre at Wynnstay:
Some Further Observations’, Theatre Notebook: A Journal of the History and Technique of the British Theatre, Vol. 59,
No. 1, 2005, pp. 53-55, 53.
357
Barrett, The Diary and Letters of Madame D’Arblay, II, 472. Thursday 31st January 1787.
358
Darly, Book of Hints.
359
Elisabeth J. Heard, ‘The Theatre at Wynnstay: eighteenth century private theatricals at their finest’, Theatre Notebook:
A Journal of the History and Technique of the British Theatre, Vol. 58, No. 1, 2004, pp. 18-33, 21
355
174
transport, books, music, hairdressing, jewellery and costume. This underlines the sheer
complexity and scope of the Wynnstay product and its importance to the economic livelihood of
the local people. Rather than remaining a closed and completely in-house form of entertainment,
the theatricals at Wynnstay were gradually transformed into ‘an ambitious and widely publicised
socio-cultural enterprise’.360 Publicity in London was generated by the visits of reviewers, but
Wynnstay also possessed its own system of advertising in the form of specially designed tickets
and playbills. The production and placement of these items in inns and around the estate
ensured that local gentry and estate workers alike were made aware of forthcoming
performances. The large capacity of the theatre also meant that special tickets were designed
and printed in large numbers, an activity in which Bunbury took part.361 He produced several
tickets for admission which were etched by himself and other engravers. 61
Playbills dating from January 1775 advertised the existence of two dress or ‘publick’ rehearsals
and these were used as an opportunity for the cast to practice in front of a large, live audience.
The actor-manager George Colman was employed as the theatrical advisor at Wynnstay from
1779 to 1781 and he and his son observed that these open rehearsals provided a forum for
collective lower class indulgence. Colman saw them as an opportunity to ‘edify and astound the
inferior natives, - the farmers, trades men, &c’.362 He tacitly acknowledged the difference
between the ‘galleries’ and the ‘boxes’ and transplanted accepted metropolitan social distinctions
into a geographically distant province. Working people made an ideal audience for the actors,
although their uncritical reaction and applause was considered ‘too injudicious to be flattering’.
This audience enjoyed theatre as a means of entertainment and Colman’s amusement at their
‘untutored’ response was allied with his professional detachment from the amateur actors.
Despite their privileged social status, it was doubted ‘whether […] any London manager, would
have offer’d the best actor among them a good salary’.363
Heard, ‘The Theatre at Wynnstay: eighteenth century private theatricals at their finest’, 33.
These consisted of ‘a general advertisement, an invitation, and a ticket for admittance’. See the Wynnstay collection at
the National Library of Wales and the Harvard Theatre Collection.
362
‘These joyous, unsophisticated folks […] were, in comparison with our more refined visitors, as the London Galleries
are to the dress’d Boxes’. George Colman, Random Records (London, 1830), Vol. II, 54-55.
363
Colman, Random Records, I, 258-259.
360
361
175
Bunbury and the Wynnstay actors were enthusiastic, but they were also awkward and ignorant of
the most basic rules of stagecraft. Colman’s professional pride was regularly affronted by their
ineptitude and during one performance he found the butler’s attempt to pass a sword so clumsy
that ‘he jumped upon the stage, and, snatching the sword out of the man’s hand, cried, ‘Zounds,
sir, can’t you do it thus?’ – showing him the proper way’.364 The company absorbed the Colmans’
criticism and undertook a programme of theatrical education and advancement of their own
design. They sought inspiration from visiting acting troupes and were regular guests of Bunbury’s
favourite company at Wrexham.365 This sense of common purpose was reflected in the
production of an in-house magazine in 1783. The humorous tone of The Breakfast Courant or
Bread and Butter Chronicle reflects Bunbury’s enthusiastic approach to the theatre and the
letterpress may have been composed by him: ‘The actors are desired not to be too free with the
vis comica on the Stage, as the House is expected to be very full and the Audience will not have
room to burst their sides’.366 The existence of this group magazine illustrated the fact that the
Wynnstay company shared a strong sense of communal identity forged through regular periods of
close contact and this was allied with an obvious enthusiasm for the theatre.
The dedication of the amateurs was matched by Wynnstay’s impressive list of houseguests and
the audience that was selected for the main performances. Colman intimated that the company
was brilliant when it took up its ‘correct’ position off-stage. As a professional actor, he believed
that the amateurs were simply playing at being actors and that this disturbed the established
social equilibrium.
The Company here, when off the Stage, was superior to any regulars on it […] We
certainly were very attractive; for the good Cambro-Britons, of the first families, flock’d
from distant domains to see us; - some came from 30 miles off; - and carriages were in
such requisition at the Inns, that, one night, there were two morning coaches waiting in
the Park, which had each brought a merry party of six inside’.367
364
Colman, Random Records, I, 260.
Bunbury, ‘the Wynnstay Roscius’, was so pleased with these performances that Watson obtained sanction to perform
in Wrexham and the neighbouring towns every three years’. Oxford Journal, 9 February 1785.
366
Wynnstay ms. 115.
367
Colman, Random Records, I, 259.
365
176
The Morning Post concurred with Colman’s estimation of the visual impact made by the
Wynnstay audience and noted that ‘nothing could have a more genteel appearance than the
audience both nights, every one having gone dressed’.368 The illuminated theatre with its
attractive audience created an exclusive and self-contained visual spectacle and Sir Watkin and
Bunbury’s superior social connections enabled them to convince the actor David Garrick to make
the lengthy journey from London to Denbighshire in October 1777. Gillen Darcy Wood has called
Garrick ‘a product of the new commercial culture of the eighteenth century [and] a cultural icon in
the very modern sense, a merchandised brand name, a proto-movie star’.369 Although he had
retired from the stage in 1776, Garrick continued to elicit a powerful emotional response from the
English public. His attendance at Wynnstay was an acknowledgment of his acquaintance with
both Sir Watkin and Bunbury, but it also highlighted the good reputation of the Wynnstay
amateurs. Although Garrick refused an invitation to act, he was pronounced by the large
audience of Denbighshire gentry to be ‘the Life of the Company’. The amateurs performed
Chrononhotonthologos and The Upholsterer on 2nd October 1777 and the evening was a
resounding success.
[The theatre was] most elegantly illuminated and fill’d with a very brilliant Audience. The
instant Mr. Garrick entered the Theatre he was received with Peals of Applause! A
Medley Overture struck up; at the end of which […] a most elegant and masterly
Prologue […] complimented Mr. Garrick on his great attention to Shakespeare’s Plays in
particular, and echoing the Regret of the whole World for the great Loss they have
sustained in his retiring from the Stage.370
Sir Watkin was ambitious in his choice of plays for 1785 and eventually three plays and two afterpieces were chosen ‘after twenty changes and disappointments,’ as Bunbury commented in a
368
Morning Post, 26 January 1785.
Wood, The Shock of the Real: Romanticism and Visual Culture, 1760-1860, 37.
Adam’s Weekly Courant, 7 October 1777. Garrick was moved by his reception at Wynnstay and composed a poem
which celebrated Sir Watkin’s hospitality: ‘Yet tasting every social sweet/At Wynnstay’s hospitable seat/Where Beauty
smiles and Pleasures reign/ [...] So honour’d, flatter’d and carest/Such kindness in each act express’d’. Quoted in Heard,
‘The Theatre at Wynnstay: eighteenth century private theatricals at their finest’, 28.
369
370
177
letter to Patrick Dalton.371 As You Like It, The Agreeable Surprise, The Confederacy, Harlequin’s
Invasion and the pantomime Venice Preserv’d ran for one week in January to a packed house. 372
The extent of Bunbury’s involvement in the theatricals and the seriousness with which he
regarded them was illustrated in the fact that he took on the important roles of Orlando in As You
Like It, Mrs. Amulet in The Confederacy, Harlequin in Harlequin’s Invasion and Jaffier in Venice
Preserv’d in 1785. He also demonstrated his literary talents by producing a prologue that was
read on the last night of the season by the professional actor, Anthony Kinnersley. 373 While
Bunbury’s enthusiasm for Wynnstay included acting and the composition of dramatic verse, he
also utilised his artistic talent in the design of unique tickets of admission to the theatre. One
example is seen in the elegant entrance token that was reproduced in the European Magazine.374
62 This ticket consists of a laurel-edged oval in which four figures are grouped around the trunk
of a tree, draped with a banner labelled Venice Preserv’d. A smiling female figure representing
Comedy is seated on the left-hand side of the tree and holds a scarf advertising The Confederacy
and As You Like It, while to her right stands the figure of Tragedy. She stares ahead and wrings
her hands as the figure of Harlequin, holding a club labelled [Harlequin’s] Invasion, peers around
the tree. Seated at Tragedy’s feet is a laughing figure with a paper in his hands that reads The
Agreeable Surprise. Behind him, a windmill that symbolises the airy insubstantiality of the plays
has sails emblazoned with the words comedy, tragedy, farce and pantomime. The oval is topped
with the representation of a dagger and the smiling theatrical mask of Comedy, while the mask of
Tragedy at the bottom accompanies a similar instrument. A banner bearing the words Wynnstay
Theatre and the date 1785 is woven in and out of the laurel border and this echoes the draped
scarves in the central lozenge that advertises the plays.
371
Quoted in Rosenfeld, Temples of Thespis: Some Private Theatres and Theatricals in England and Wales, 1700-1820,
88.
372
Morning Post, 2 February 1785.
373
Apparently no copy of the prologue has survived. Morning Post, 26 January 1785. Heard, ‘The Theatre at Wynnstay:
eighteenth century private theatricals at their finest’, 25.
374
The ticket, engraved by Francesco Bartolozzi, is now in the British Museum and also the Pennsylvania State University
collection.
178
Audiences commented on the elegance of Bunbury’s design and the ticket was successfully reused over a number of seasons.375 The engraver Francesco Bartolozzi kept closely to the
original sketch and the detail lavished on the female figures reflects Bunbury’s interest in the
construction of fashionable sentimental portraits of women.376 Within the central oval, Comedy
recalls the figure of ‘Little Comedy’ included in Sir Joshua Reynolds’ iconic painting David Garrick
between Tragedy and Comedy (1761) and the subsequent engraving by Edward Fisher (1762).
The model for Reynolds’ playful and laughing muse was the teenage Catherine Horneck who was
later to become Bunbury’s wife.377 The figure of Tragedy is similarly reminiscent of several
contemporary images of the professional actress, Mrs. Siddons, whom Bunbury knew.378 One of
these rough drawings, entitled simply An Actress, includes a representation of a woman who
adopts a similar pose and wears a costume that is almost identical to that of the elegant lady in
the ticket.379 Bunbury’s commitment to the theatrical activity at Wynnstay extended to the
construction of a unique and elegant form of advertising.
It is the opinion of Sybil Rosenfeld that Bunbury did not join the company at Wynnstay as a
regular actor until 1778.380 This opinion is based on the evidence of surviving play-bills, but it is
possible that Bunbury’s enthusiasm and familial connection with Sir Watkin Williams Wynn meant
that he was involved in the theatrical performances from a much earlier date. It is certain that
Bunbury spent several weeks of each year in Wales and that his family often accompanied him.
He took a series of challenging dramatic roles each season and followed Sir Watkin’s example in
encouraging his two children to act. Bunbury’s eldest son made a triumphant acting debut in The
Tempest in 1786 and a reviewer from the Morning Chronicle noted admiringly that ‘Master
375
Rosenfeld, Temples of Thespis: Some Private Theatres and Theatricals in England and Wales, 1700-1820, 89.
Bunbury had a particular talent for drawing women and his work includes many sentimental portraits of female
peasants and characters from popular drama and literature. See especially Louisa (1795), Modern Graces (1791) First
Interview of Werther and Charlotte (1782) and earlier discussion.
377
The painting is now at Waddesdon, The Rothschild Collection (Rothschild Family Trust).
378
Bunbury corresponded with the actress. See her letter to him c.1788 regarding her ‘Benefit’ and request for him to
draw her. See Bunbury, The Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart., 401.
379
This pencil sketch was found for sale on the internet.
380
She notes that: ‘during this season too the caricaturist Henry Bunbury first acted with the company as Shylock and
other characters. He was then a young man of 27, a friend of Garrick and Reynolds’. Rosenfeld, Temples of Thespis:
Some Private Theatres and Theatricals in England and Wales, 1700-1820, 83.
376
179
Bunbury’ was ‘beyond expectation and praise as Ariel’.381 Bunbury’s wife Catherine Horneck also
visited Wynnstay and she is pictured in costume with her sister as The Merry Wives of Windsor in
1780. 63 She also made social calls at the homes of the neighbouring gentry and met the
fastidious ‘Ladies of Llangollen’ during a visit in 1788. They were captivated by her candid and
open nature, but especially by her obliging and expressive interpretation of a dramatic text:
‘Sweetly unreserved was this dear woman about her own affairs […] Read Hamlet so admirably,
so astonishingly well’.382
Bunbury’s acting was considered by all his contemporaries to be of a very high standard and he
was ranked by audiences and reviewers alike alongside the professional members of the
Wynnstay company. A reporter from the Morning Post attended the run of plays in 1785 and
particularly singled out As You Like It and The Agreeable Surprise for praise. He noted that they
were ‘performed in a style worthy of the London stage […] Among the performers, the greatest
merit must be allow’d to Messrs. Bunbury, Aldersley, and Kinnersley’.383 The following season,
Bunbury was again praised as one of ‘the shining lights’ by a reviewer for the Morning
Chronicle.384 Bunbury’s dramatic talent and personal popularity led to the nickname ‘the
Wynnstay Roscius’. As a personal friend of Garrick, the original Roscius, this was hyperbolic
praise in line with Horace Walpole’s estimation of him as ‘the second Hogarth’ in 1780. He
became a relative star of the Wynnstay company and his charismatic presence provided a focal
point for attention. It was noted by a member of the local gentry that Bunbury’s two-week
absence from Wales prior to the beginning of the season would ‘throw the whole County of
Denbighshire into confusion!’385
As an important cast member, Bunbury’s dramatic talents stimulated positive London reviews,
while his personal fame generated a wider interest in the Wynnstay company. Bunbury
381
Morning Chronicle, 11 January 1786.
G. H. Bell (ed.), The Hamwood Papers of the Ladies of Llangollen and Caroline Hamilton (London: Macmillan, 1930),
77. Sunday 10 February 1788.
383
Morning Post, 26 January 1785.
384
Morning Chronicle, 11 January 1786.
385
Heard, ‘The Theatre at Wynnstay: eighteenth century private theatricals at their finest’, 29.
382
180
capitalised on his ability to construct coherent dramatic narrative in the production of prints that
detailed scenes from plays, and this is particularly marked following the closure of the Wynnstay
theatre on the death of Sir Watkin in 1789. From 1788-1796, Bunbury produced over twenty
prints for Thomas Macklin’s Shakespeare Gallery. This includes his interpretation of portions of
The Winter’s Tale, Henry IV, The Tempest, Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, and Two
Gentlemen of Verona and As You Like It. 64 As an enthusiastic and skilled amateur actor
Bunbury’s art is deeply marked by his love of the theatre. In this he bears some similarity to
William Hogarth who viewed his characters as actors and constructed his images as selfcontained scenes. Bunbury’s exploration of role-play and social belonging is characterised by his
personal experience. His highly individual productions are also marked by an instinctive feeling
for human nature and a sympathetic response to human frailty.
The attractive package of hospitality, entertainment and fashionable company offered by Sir
Watkin’s theatrical enterprise at Wynnstay reflected Bunbury’s own enthusiastic approach to life
and art. His outgoing personality and instinctive feeling for theatre ensured that his own
experience was unerringly positive. This was reinforced by the fact that an audience composed
solely of friends, colleagues and like-minded social acquaintances surrounded him. Wynnstay
represented a private fantasy world in which privileged members of the upper classes were able
to indulge themselves with a finite and personally negotiated withdrawal from reality. Although
the estate was geographically isolated from the capital as the centre of taste and fashion, Sir
Watkin’s wealth enabled him to employ London scene painters, musicians and actors to recreate
the atmosphere of vibrant metropolitan life there. As the consummate director of this carefully
constructed world, Sir Watkin created and oversaw an ‘ideal’ form of entertainment for a specially
selected audience. In an atmosphere in which social uncertainty regarding the ability to shape
and control operations prevailed, there was a sense of safety in being watched and judged by
those from a similar social background. Sir Watkin’s role as both actor and manager in his own
theatrical enterprise was mirrored in Bunbury’s complex relationship to the art that he produced.
181
Role play and social displacement: Lord Derby following Miss Farren (1781)
In 1781, Bunbury produced one of his few topical prints in the form of Lord Derby following Miss
Farren.386 65 In choosing to portray a member of the upper classes in a light-hearted manner, he
combined a contemporary social scandal with a comic observation of equestrian skills. The print
incorporates a broadly identifiable portrait of a member of the nobility in the form of the married
Lord Derby who became infatuated with the actress Elizabeth Farren. Contemporary observers
were swift to note the peer’s unselfconscious and public manner of courtship but also the inherent
comedy in the physical contrasts between the two lovers. While Lord Derby was of a diminutive
size with a well-rounded figure, the object of his affections was correspondingly tall and elegantly
slim. Despite their social and physical incongruities, the couple embarked upon an extended
sixteen-year association before finally marrying in 1797. In Bunbury’s print, the relationship
between the peer and the actress is both displaced and transformed by a symbolic series of
absences, while the concentration on equestrian skills, or a lack of them, reinforces this. The
‘classless’ pursuit of horsemanship de-personalises the protagonist and the other characters in
the print and few other visual co-ordinates are provided. Bunbury portrays only the rear portion of
a carriage disappearing out of the left-hand side of the picture in a form of snapshot action with
the corpulent peer following behind in faceless profile.
Symbolically, the print was untitled when it was first published, much in the same way that images
of socially privileged ladies remained anonymous when displayed in public exhibitions. 387 In art,
the identity of the fashionable elite was decorously protected and Bunbury continues this tradition
while also supplying clues as to the protagonists’ names. He includes a poster advertising in
prominent letters that the ‘DERBY DILIGENCE continues flying daily’, while the rotundity of the
figure provides a powerful clue as to the gentleman’s identity. The physical absence of the lady is
both compensated for and explained by the verse that appears immediately beneath the print:
‘When I follow’d a lass that was froward and shy/Oh I stuck to her stuff but she would not comply’.
386
Published by John Raphael Smith from his shop at 83 Oxford Street, on 20 July 1781.
See Wood, The Shock of the Real: Romantic and Visual Culture 1760-1860, 17-66. Also Hallett, ‘Reading the Walls:
Pictorial Dialogue at the British Royal Academy.’
387
182
These lines hint both at Lord Derby’s persistence and Miss Farren’s well-documented and
consistently virtuous resistance of his advances. As the love object, she is both literally and
figuratively absent from the print, as well as from the physical relationship itself. Both characters
are faceless or invisible in order to emphasise the supposed secrecy of their affair and their
awkward position in social limbo. Because conservative members of the upper classes regarded
them as both socially incompatible and adulterers, they were considered inadmissible as a couple
in polite society.
Bunbury’s print cleverly encapsulates a dramatic episode in miniature. The disembodied Miss
Farren is in the process of disappearing at speed out of the picture, while her all too visible suitor
presents a highly comic figure in his close pursuit of her. Their relationship, or its absence here,
allows Bunbury to capitalise on the all-encompassing theme of bad horsemanship. The print
becomes not a directly personal and censorious attack on an indiscreet love affair, but the
exposure of a symbolically ‘bad seat’ on horseback. While the idea of humorously poor
horsemanship is linked with the visible and public pursuit of an improper relationship, Bunbury’s
portrayal is not motivated by viciousness. It is instead characterised by a naïve approach that
renders the scene gently comic, with emphasis placed upon Lord Derby’s awkward, yet strangely
heroic stance. It is significant that contemporary members of the privileged elite responded to the
print in precisely this manner. In aristocratic circles it was said that ‘[although] Lord Derby is still
following Miss Farren, the caricature has had the good effect of mending his seat on horseback,
which is entirely changed’.388 This represents the Renaissance maxim of ‘teaching with delight’
for although a caricature cannot cure a middle-aged man of an indiscreet and foolish love affair, it
can go some way towards altering the way in which he rides his horse. The power of art to
induce a reformation of character was allied to William Hogarth’s ‘modern moral stories’ and his
aim to educate his audience through the wordless medium of art.389
388
389
Lord Hare to Lord Carlisle in Manuscripts of the Earl of Carlisle (Historical Manuscripts Commission, 1897) 555-6.
See Paulson, Hogarth’s Graphic Works, Vol. 1.
183
Bunbury’s print therefore imagines and acknowledges a dramatic performance between two wellknown characters and presents their affair as a teasingly comic farce. This has the effect of
lightening and deflecting the serious implications of public infidelity, as well as the collision of
socially distinct individuals. Significantly, Lord Derby is seen as the visible, if anonymous,
pursuer of the lady, while Miss Farren as his social inferior is imagined only as an absent
presence. While her identity is demurely protected, her lack of rank also guarantees her
anonymity in the pictured world. The contrasting ways in which the two individuals are
represented is an attempt at the preservation of decorum, but it is also an acknowledgment of
class difference and a determined maintenance of social segregation. Like Bunbury, Lord Derby
was an amateur actor and this print affirms social and recreational belonging in its humorous
documentation of the thespian’s response to the stimuli of love and drama. To heighten the
contrast between the lovers, the seasoned professional actress Miss Farren remains wisely
hidden in the coach, while Lord Derby adopts the role of the faceless amateur, still visible to the
curious viewer. The audience for Bunbury’s prints was composed primarily of upper class
members and this meant that Lord Derby following Miss Farren represented a translation of
reality into a universal observation on the nature of love and obsession. Lord Derby was both an
actor and an upper class audience member, and while his amateur status meant that he was
temporarily vulnerable to public scrutiny, his privileged class membership guaranteed him
ultimate social superiority and a level of creative freedom not enjoyed by those of a lesser rank.
Role play and the social icon: Sir Gregory Gigg (1781)
Bunbury returned to the subject of horsemanship with the print Sir Gregory Gigg which was
engraved and published by J. R. Smith on 23rd July 1781. Inspired by the song ‘Sir Gregory
Gigg, the City Beau’ in O’Keefe’s 1779 play Son-in-law, Bunbury presents the viewer with the
dramatic realisation of the fictitious Sir Gregory Gigg. 66 The image is seductively rendered and
depicts a fashionable gentleman seated in a high-wheeled carriage, or gig, drawn by two horses.
Unlike many of his earlier prints, it is characterised by a sleek finish and its solidly rendered and
detailed foreground is reminiscent of a fine book illustration. The image is portrayed without
184
recourse to comedy and is instead rendered with a fine attention to detail. It is also lyrically
descriptive and Sir Gregory Gigg’s hunched body suggests the speed at which he is travelling,
just as the horses’ manes and tails fly in the wind as they move through the picture space.
Bunbury’s image of Sir Gregory Gigg is aimed at both the aristocratic and the middle class
theatre-going public that recognised the figure from O’Keefe’s play. Members of the middle class
responded to the rendition of popular songs and the sentimental appeal of a ‘City Beau’, while the
print is also intensely contemporary in its representation of a fashionable pastime. The image
marries documentary realism with artistic idealism as the high standard of engraving and careful
attention to detail makes the print a visually appealing illustration of current equestrian practice.
The figure of Sir Gregory Gigg is pictured as a fashionable gentleman amateur who participates
enthusiastically in the latest craze for driving, but he is also an artistic fabrication. In this form, he
represents an impossible ideal and the approximation of the romantic figure from a play or a
contemporary fashion plate. The print is classified as a form of poster ‘pin-up’ and the subject
matter is cleverly manipulated by Bunbury to appeal to both a male and a female audience. By
depicting the attractive man of fashion driving the very latest model of carriage, Bunbury renders
the figure of Sir Gregory Gigg instantly appealing to a wide audience. As the popular ‘middle
class’ character from a play, Sir Gregory Gigg is transformed into an idealised and cross-class
cultural icon by the power of his disguise and attractive external appearance. As the theatrical
director and vendor of the image, Bunbury instinctively knows how to package and market it and
how to manipulate and ‘work’ his audience. He harnesses a collective desire for escapist fantasy
in order to present each section of the audience with an exactly rendered image, shaped to fit
their individual requirement and desire. Bunbury’s print operates on a number of different levels
to become a cleverly versatile and extremely successful commercial commodity.
Comedy and social exclusion: Hints to Bad Horsemen (1781)
Bunbury’s popular series of equestrian prints Hints to bad Horsemen (1781) extended the theme
of acting to include the related areas of social propriety and belonging and provided the basis for
185
Bunbury’s successful first book The Academy for Grown Horsemen (1787).390 The four linked
drawings entitled Symptoms of Restiveness, Symptoms of Starting, Symptoms of Kicking and
Symptoms of Tumbling were published by Watson and Dickinson on 10th May 1781. Each print is
accompanied with the verse ‘Ah me! What various Ills betide/The Looby who presumes to ride!’391
67 These lines act as a repetitive form of warning mantra for the social parvenu and also provide
a commentary upon the collection of ungainly and inexperienced ‘Loobies’ presumptuous enough
to mount a horse. The prints catalogue the disastrous and comic consequences that attend the
riders’ pairing with animals that possess an established and autonomous existence. Bunbury
envisages the horse as the strong-willed master of the inferior rider and this in turn reinforces
ideas of social superiority, so that the ‘classless’ pursuit of riding assumes much greater cultural
significance. Bunbury half-seriously acknowledges that a reversal of power takes place in which
the supposedly dumb and undiscriminating animal is identified as the human rider, rather than the
horse. A form of hierarchy and social judgement or stratification therefore operates and is
discernible even in the ‘natural’ relationship between a man and a horse, emphasising the fact
that all aspects of life are regulated.
Each of the four prints is engraved in a rough and scratchy manner and is characterised by a
sense of enthusiastic energy and freshness. Instead of ‘tidying up’ the drawings, the engraver
deliberately preserves their sketch-like quality in order to communicate a sense of their blunt
original impact. In keeping so faithfully to Bunbury’s drawings, the engraver acknowledges that
part of his work’s popularity rested on its energetic and unpolished nature. While members of the
middle class particularly prized the immediacy of this style of art, the comic impact of the prints is
partially drawn from the fact that their ironic target is a middle class parvenu, or a pretender to
aristocratic accomplishments. Bunbury’s intended audiences affected a preference for
This was published under the pseudonym ‘Geoffrey Gambado’ and contains a humorous letterpress dealing with
equestrian misadventures accompanied by comic ‘advice’ on how to be a good horseman. The illustrations were
engraved after Bunbury’s drawings by William Dickinson and include: The Mistaken Notion, A Bit of Blood, One Way to
Stop your Horse, How to ride genteel and agreeable down hill, How to lose your way, How to turn any horse, mare or
gelding, How to be run away with, etc. The later Annals of Horsemanship (1791) is published under the same pseudonym
and adopts an epistolary format, with comic illustrated replies to equestrian problems. These include dealing with
equestrian wind and how to make a horse go faster. Both make excellent reading.
391
The popularity of the drawings was such that they were pirated. One print published by J. R. Smith in 1789 is
accompanied with a variation on Bunbury’s verse: ‘Alas what troubles oft betide the Booby who attempts to ride’.
390
186
fashionable amateur and ‘insider’ art rather than works of greater technical accuracy and
perfection from a professional artist. The aristocratic audience responded to Bunbury as ‘one of
their own’ and purchased his art in order to reinforce their own sense of power and their right to
set and maintain the fashionable cultural benchmark. Correspondingly, the middle class
audience was seduced into purchasing art that made them feel, however vicariously, as if they
belonged to the ruling elite. Both audiences were motivated by a perception of elitism and a
desire to reinforce particular ways of thinking.
The first print in the series is entitled Symptoms of Restiveness. 68 This depicts a horse engaged
in scratching itself, perfectly heedless of the ineffectual physical exertions of its rotund and
impatient rider. In a clever comic reversal of expectation, the title of the print is ironic, for it is the
rider who is displaying ‘symptoms of restiveness’ rather than the horse and this underlines the
two-way nature of social trial and exclusion. In the second print Symptoms of Starting, a horse is
shown literally ‘starting’ at a figure as it emerges from the undergrowth. 69 The equally surprised
rider pulls on the reins and is almost unseated by the sudden movement of his mount. Again, the
horse is seen to be in control of the situation, with the rider a superfluous addition to the picture.
The third print Symptoms of Kicking reinforces the message of the previous two prints. A bucking
horse unseats its unprepared rider who then slides ungraciously over its head. 70 The
expressions of both the horse and rider heighten the sense of comedy and Bunbury intimates that
this scene has been enacted several times before. This is a social set piece and consists of a
learned performance, in which both participants carry out a series of well-rehearsed and
choreographed actions. The final print Symptoms of Tumbling depicts the logical and comic
conclusion to the three preceding near-disasters. 71 The dramatic finale portrays a horse on its
knees after having tripped, while its rider is captured in an ungraceful mid-air somersault. The
horse has literally ejected its rider and demonstrates a determination not to allow any further
continuation of these endeavours. The social parvenu therefore finds himself, ungraciously and
emphatically excluded from the elite pursuit of riding.
187
In these prints, Bunbury cleverly reverses human and animal characteristics and invests the
horse with a mental and physical autonomy and superiority that results in total mastery over the
hapless rider. The relationship between man and horse may therefore be seen as both natural
and highly artificial in its mediation by circumstance and the dictates of social ‘placing’. While
horsemanship was the traditional preserve of the culturally privileged, the majority of the
population possessed some form of equestrian knowledge. A horse could therefore be classified
as both a utilitarian object and a luxury commodity for those with the requisite material wealth and
leisure time to upgrade its role. Bunbury plays with these conflicting ideas and transforms the
horse into the symbolic arbiter of cultural and social ‘belonging’ with a stated ‘right’ to judge who
is and who is not fit to ride and to belong socially. The prints draw attention to a comic sense of
universality and also to the difference between the status of the professional and the amateur in
both the social and the cultural spheres. These ideas are linked with an acknowledgment of
social exclusivity and a restricted level of cultural membership. Bunbury expresses a conviction
that the omnipotent equestrian ‘master’ is allowed to choose between those who belong and
those who do not.
It is significant that the amateurs depicted by Bunbury are unable to gain access to the charmed
realm of the cultural elite. While the middle class riders are predominantly viewed as figures of
fun, Bunbury also reserves a degree of compassion for them and this emphasises his
humanitarian credentials. He highlights the comedy of the riders’ attempts to master their horses
and, by intimation, their social graces, but Bunbury also draws attention to his own hybrid status.
Although he remains a member of the ruling elite, he also adopts the roles of amateur actor and
artist and by doing so he establishes an alternate identity for himself. Bunbury becomes an
external observer of the events that he depicts and this liberates him from the pressure of having
to behave in a way dictated solely by his social status. Bunbury’s views remain balanced and this
sense of perspective enables him to celebrate the chaotic variety of life and the universal value of
comedy, rather than a limited social selection and an indiscriminately applied and wholesale form
of cultural segregation.
188
Comedy and role reversal: The Inflexible Porter (1783)
Bunbury’s print The Inflexible Porter - A Tragedy was engraved and published by J. R. Smith on
24th March 1783.392 72 It depicts a small-scale domestic tragedy in which traditional social roles
are cleverly reversed. The action is played out between three main characters and is set in an
anteroom or outer-hallway, indicated by the pendant lantern and receding flight of stairs. The
figures are linked by a wave of sinuous gestures and this draws the eye from left to right, both
mirroring and concentrating the viewer’s attention on the unfolding drama. A livery-clad Porter
occupies the central position within the print and holds up his hands in surprise and protest at the
entrance of a strangely attired gentleman.393 73 Despite the eccentricity of his appearance, this
figure is identified as a member of the privileged elite, and he towers physically and socially over
the other characters in the picture. The gentleman’s servant pleads with the Porter for his
master’s admission, but the Porter’s mind is set against this eccentric social superior. Rather
than looking directly at the servant, the Porter gazes with an expression of exaggerated horror at
the elongated figure of the gentleman. He refuses entry to this individual based on the random
and partial nature of his own personal preference and also, by inference, his absent master’s
taste and judgement.
As a long-serving and loyal employee, the Porter therefore intuits his employer’s reaction and
assesses the level of admissibility of the gentleman into his presence and by inference, into
society at large. First impressions are based entirely upon dress, or disguise and the
gentleman’s character has been judged solely on his external appearance. The ‘tragedy’ acted
out within the print therefore has at its centre the awkward gentleman. There is obvious comedy
in his physical presence, but there is also pathos in his splendid isolation from the other
protagonists and the dramatic scene of rejection itself. While the gentleman takes no part in the
sordid business transaction between the Porter and the manservant on his behalf, his
Published by J. R. Smith from his shop at ‘No. 83, opposite the Pantheon, Oxford Street’.
This figure appears in Front, Side View and Back Front of a Modern Fine Gentleman (1783), engraved by J. R. Smith.
The image is associated with the Army diplomat. Col. William Neville. See also Gillray’s parody of Bunbury’s title in A
Back side and a Front View of a Modern Fine Lady, Vide Bunbury, or the Swimming Venus of Ramsgate (c.1803).
392
393
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detachment and physical and mental impotence renders him incapable of influencing its eventual
outcome. Bunbury recognises that this form of splendid isolation is the preserve of the powerful,
but he also acknowledges the feeling of temporary powerlessness caused by the assumption of
an inappropriate disguise.
Although Bunbury’s print appears to be a straightforward comedy centred on a light-hearted
reversal of roles, it is also tinged with a strong sense of irony. There is universal comedy in the
fact that the socially inferior Porter acts as a symbolic ‘gatekeeper’ and is able to veto the entry of
his social superiors into their own world. Bunbury also explores the idea that society hinges upon
decisions based on the flimsiest of premises, including external appearance and the eccentric
nature of disguise. The Porter’s resolutely ‘inflexible’ nature links him with the unambiguous
morality of his employer. There is irony in the fact that both the Porter and the gentleman’s
servant are actively engaged in a transaction from which the gentleman remains completely
excluded. If negotiation with a servant is beneath a gentleman’s dignity, this emphasises the
difference and the distance between the characters and between the classes that they represent.
In Bunbury’s print and in the social world that it reflects, servants take part in the important
business of social admission or refusal and wield a power that mirrors that of their absent
masters. While the Porter’s master is physically absent, the manservant’s master is emotionally
absent from the scene. Significantly, both are able to exert and exercise a form of power over
their employees without doing or saying anything. 394
Comedy and role play unmasked: City Foulers – Mark (1785)
Bunbury’s print City Foulers – Mark (1785) deals with a caricatured version of sportsmanship, but
it also provides a humorous commentary upon the relationship between the social classes. 395 74
The print was engraved by J. Jones on 1st September 1785 and portrays keen ‘city sportsmen’
incongruously engaged in the activity of hunting in a metropolitan park.396 75 The basic level of
394
Note the inclusive treatment of servants by Sir Watkin Williams Wynn and Mr. Yorke. See Moses (1783) and A Camp
Scene (1784) for Bunbury’s representation of coloured servants.
395
See Gillray’s Cockney Sportsmen series (1800), published by H. Humphrey.
396
No 63 Great Portland St, Marylebone.
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comedy is provided by the fact that two city dwellers are participating in the aristocratic pastime of
hunting, but doing so in the middle of a London pleasure ground. This is overlaid with a sense of
complicity in the viewer’s recognition of the location and the social class of the ‘city fowlers’
themselves. The two hunters are both armed with long barrelled weapons and each adopts a stiff
and exaggerated ‘hunting’ posture, as if copied directly from a sporting manual, or an idealised
picture. By indulging in a pastime that is not ‘natural’ to them, they are consequently forced to
imitate the actions of fictitious hunters in an elaborate homage to a social fantasy. One man
stands poised and alert, holding a gun into his shoulder and squinting intently down its length,
while the other has a similar weapon tucked under his arm and creeps silently across the picture
on the tips of his toes. Ahead of them both, a hound pauses to sniff the air in an equally posed
and theatrical manner and this gives the picture the sense of a tableau vivant or pantomime farce.
The hunting party therefore participates in a series of actions without being fully aware of what
they are doing and their enthusiasm is unable to compensate for their genuine lack of knowledge.
The concentration on the faces of these ‘cockney hunters’ is cleverly contrasted with the glaring
incongruity of the setting, in which rolling countryside is replaced with a piece of London parkland.
In an ironic parody of a pastoral setting, the only cover appears in the form of a small bush and a
hazy line of trees fading back towards the outline of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the distance. The
hunt has already become a metropolitan spectacle and to the right of the hunters, an amused
passerby has climbed upon a rock in order to get a better view of the comic scene unfolding
before him. This action has the effect of creating a contrived ‘picture’ within the picture, complete
with an internalised and captive viewer. As this man can see, the hunters’ intended target is not a
wild animal, but a squatting city dweller positioned just out of sight at the base of a tree. The
defecating dog in the right foreground mirrors his pose, while the ironic application of John Gay’s
verse beneath the print highlights the fact that this is a mock-heroic depiction of an ironic ‘urban
sport’:
Against the Wind he takes his prudent way,
While the strong gale directs him to his prey;
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Now the warm scent assures the covey near,
He treads with caution & he points with fear.
The verse increases the comic impact of the image and offers the viewer an assumption of
superiority over the cockney hunters in being able to see the prey and identify the ultimately
fruitless nature of the hunters’ labours. These individuals will never be able to convince a socially
privileged audience to believe in their disguise or their dramatic performance. Bunbury draws
attention to ideas of social propriety within a rural/urban dichotomy and uses comedy as a
medium of escapism to establish and affirm cultural belonging.
Conclusion
Bunbury’s appreciation of drama and his sustained involvement in amateur theatrical
performance had an allied and very specific effect on his art. As an actor, he was able to use
disguise and role-play as a form of artistic escapism and he indulged himself in a willed and
conscious withdrawal from reality. He also belonged emphatically to a section of society that
believed in its own social and cultural superiority and the fact that an audience should consist of
like-minded individuals drawn from the same class. Despite, or possibly because of, his upper
class membership Bunbury was able to adopt a number of different roles and disguises
simultaneously and this enabled him to question the scope and validity of role-play and identity.
In adopting a number of conflicting personae, he also engaged in the debate concerning the
relative difference in status between the upper and the middle classes and between the amateur
and the professional members of society. Bunbury produced a uniquely eloquent form of art that
was characterised by its multi-layered viewpoint. In attempting to strip various social actors of
their disguise, Bunbury was also able to reveal something of his own character and motivation.
The selection of prints examined in this chapter record examples of dramatic playacting and
concentrate particularly on the area of sport as a vehicle for social comment. As the primary
location for middle class aspirational involvement, Bunbury viewed the pastimes of hunting and
riding as the forward edge of an unacknowledged site of class conflict. In his role as a member of
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the ruling elite, Bunbury was able to divest the amateur actors and social parvenus of their
disguise and subsequently reveal their component parts and true identity. The moment of
ultimate revelation was achieved in spite of the valiant attempts to adopt a series of different
personae or disguises. It was also firmly grounded in the appreciation of comic misadventure and
good-natured teasing. Bunbury operated as a partially detached observer, but he was also
intimately involved in the different instances of role-play that he recorded. By revealing the
characters’ true natures as well as his own assumed role, he was able to exhibit both sympathy
for and superiority over them. The composition and nature of the audience then conditioned the
ratio and balance between these reactions. In addressing a particular viewer, Bunbury
presupposed a certain reaction. In the same way that the audience for amateur theatricals was
composed of a similar class, so Bunbury’s prints assumed the existence of a privileged group of
observers, who were able to view and instantly connect with them.
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CHAPTER 5
THE SPORTING ENGLISHMAN: THE SOCIAL AND EQUESTRIAN AMATEUR
Introduction
In this chapter I examine Bunbury’s development and use of the innovatory and large-scale social
panorama. This new graphic format was expertly tailored to meet the needs of a growing middle
class audience and Bunbury used it as the framework in which to contain his extended
compositions. I argue that the changing social climate at the end of the eighteenth century
created conditions ripe for the development and popularisation of this highly distinctive form of
art. I use a detailed study of Bunbury’s first two prints in this genre, Hyde Park and A City Hunt
(both 1781) to discuss the popularity of the London park as a place of fashionable resort and
social collision. I also examine the way in which Bunbury utilises the sporting genre, in the form
of hunting and horseracing, as a context for his prints. I argue that Bunbury adopts the twin roles
of detached stage-manager and judge of the mixture of social and equestrian traffic that he
depicts in the print Richmond Hill (1782). In addition, I explore Bunbury’s use of an artistic proxy
in the form of a stilled and anonymous observer to examine the chaotic affirmation of life
represented by cross-class collision.
I also argue that Bunbury’s controlled concentration on the fashionable ‘indoor’ social pursuits of
dancing and gossiping is intimately linked with the production of his large-scale equestrian
panoramas. I suggest that the prints entitled A Long Minuet as Danced at Bath and The
Propagation of a Lie (both published in 1787) utilise a pared-down list of characters in the
production of a partially developed linear narrative in which the reader/viewer is also implicated. I
then examine the impulse to create a prototype ‘comic strip’ or narrative form of art through a
comparative discussion of the work of Bunbury and Hogarth. I argue that although Bunbury’s
prints in this style are highly derivative, they also break new ground in their amalgamation of
humour and social comment within large-scale panoramic and frieze formats. I also show that
Bunbury’s prints contain sufficient raw materials to please a variety of different audiences, while
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presupposing and allowing space for a number of different interpretations. Although the print
examples I use are drawn from a concentrated and relatively short seven year period, I suggest
that they illustrate a positive and marked development in Bunbury’s artistic ability and in his
confidence to operate as a successful salesman of his own artwork.
Social influence and fashionable innovation
Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the barriers that separated culture from a mass
audience were gradually lowered. As culture was commodified the scope of visual entertainment
available to a variety of social audiences expanded and art became an important ‘experience’ in
its own right.397 Gillen Darcy Wood has noted that ‘a seemingly insatiable popular appetite for
visual recreation’ was catered for through a wide variety of different forms, including ‘theatres, art
galleries, panoramas and dioramas, museums, cabinets of curiosities, and sight-seeing tours’.398
The general desire to consume spectacle and to prolong the artistic experience therefore
generated a new set of cultural requirements. Audiences and viewers were eager to involve
themselves both directly and vicariously in cultural recreation and they also wanted to have their
experiences fixed and recorded for posterity. This tendency manifested itself in the narcissistic
desire to consume individualised and intensely self-referential products. Bunbury intuited the
need to be surrounded by familiar objects when he included recognisable London locations in his
prints. The incorporation of fashionable metropolitan landmarks increased the emotional and
visual impact of an image and transformed it into a highly desirable form of souvenir picture, or
tourist ‘snapshot’. The familiar and yet mythicised location also represented a scenic backdrop
against which the portraits of well-known contemporary figures and identifiable social ‘types’
could be superimposed. The level of viewing pleasure was therefore increased by the excitement
engendered by the possibility of self-recognition.
397
See Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination, 201-288, Ann Bermingham & John Brewer (eds.) The Consumption of
Culture: Image, Object, Text (London: Routledge, 1997), 75-89, 489-514.
398
Wood, The Shock of the Real: Romanticism and Visual Culture, 1760-1860, 221.
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Gillen Darcy Wood has argued that the inclusion of known faces within a snapshot individuates
the generic experience of a tourist location. This discussion of the modern tourist photograph
may be interestingly applied to Bunbury’s images:
For the modern tourist, the inclusion of familiar faces in the photograph (oneself included)
individuates the experience of generic tourist locales but, equally importantly, the
presence of other tourists in the frame, real or implied, is a necessary guarantee of the
desirability of the site ‘consumed’.399
The cross-class desire for self-recognition was also accompanied by the need to defend
established social positions and to compete with each other. It became inevitable that a tendency
towards social comparison and ‘one-upmanship’ was displayed by all classes of society.
[There is a] perpetual restless ambition of each of the inferior ranks to raise themselves
to the level of those immediately above them. In such a state as this fashion must have
uncontrolled sway. And a fashionable luxury must spread through it like a contagion. 400
The competition between social ranks was reflected in the conspicuous consumption of
increasingly exclusive and bespoke products. Just as female fashion expanded to express itself
in the adoption of huge ‘picture’ hats, bum rolls and the inflated ‘pouter pigeon’ look of the 1780s,
so art became similarly massive and overstated. 401 Artists who were eager to cash in on an
audience willing to pay for their art ‘experience’ began to increase the physical proportions of their
pictures. Art exhibitions were transformed into elaborate visual performances attended by large
crowds that replicated the demanding and socially mixed nature of the theatrical audience. In a
parody of upper class taste, the aspiring middle classes equated the physical size of objects with
their quality and this was especially true of graphic art. Scale and external appearance were
viewed as all-important, in the same way that these attributes were prized within a society that
399
Wood, The Shock of the Real: Romanticism and Visual Culture, 1760-1860, 189. See also the discussion of Robert
Barker’s ‘Panorama’ in 1787, 100-120 and for allied developments in art, see Vaughn, British Painting: The Golden Age,
194.
400
McKendrick, Brewer and Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society, 116.
401
Images detailing extreme female fashions, in clothing and hairstyle occur throughout this period. Horace Walpole’s
album of caricatures and etchings, 1776-1786 contain several satires on female fashions produced by women. This
album is in the collection of Miriam and Ira D. Wallace, Division of Arts, Prints and Photographs, New York Public Library.
Bunbury takes particular notice of the styling of all his female figures. This is seen in his attention to detail in the
Shakespeare and Arabian Nights illustrations. He made several watercolour sketches of the costumes for the Wynnstay
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was fascinated with material surface. While the form of ‘massive’ art represented the way in
which important audience markets could be both manipulated and exploited, Bunbury’s largescale prints were also intimately connected with the social impulse towards theatrical spectace
and ostentacious physical display.
The commodification of the cultural sphere resulted in the increased power of the product to
opertae as an entity that was capable of independent existence outside the market. The use of
advertisement and clever promotion rendered cultural products ‘fashionably desirable […] widely
known, and […] easily accessible’ to an extended ‘mass consumer market’. 402 This audience
was extremely receptive to the marketing of luxury products by talented entrepreneurs like Josiah
Wedgwood. Wedgwood and his salesmen conducted expertly targeted and aggressive
promotional campaigns for one-off private commissions known as ‘uniques’.403 This was followed
by the carefully controlled display of items in custom-built showrooms for a limited period of time.
Despite the immense cost involved in producing individually tailored pieces, Wedgwood
recognised that worth resided not in intrinsic value but in the power of a product’s potential fr
advertisement. By carefully control of supply and display, Wedgwood created a frisson of interest
around his products so that he was ultimately able to recoup his initial outlay many times over in
associated sales. ‘Uniques’ were therefore manufactured ‘entirely for their advertising value, to
win the patronage of the court and courtly circles; the friendship of the architects and the artistic
world; the favour of the fashionable aristocracy and the gentry; and of course, the future custom
of them all’.404
Like Wedgwood, Bunbury was conscious of the combined power of fashion and novelty on
potential sales. The aspirational middle class audience was particularly receptive to the dictates
and whims of fashion and this made it especially eager to copy the rapidly changing tastes of the
production of Twelfth Night. These include Miss Wynne as Viola and Horneck as Sebastien, as well as a larger
watercolour of Act III scene iv. dated January 1784. National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.
402
McKendrick, Brewer and Plumb, The Birth of A Consumer Society, 22-23
403
See Trevor Fawcett, ‘Wedgwood’s Bath Showrooms’, Pickpocketing the Rich: Portrait Painting in Bath 1720-1800
(Bath: Holborne Museum of Art, 2002), 104-112.
404
McKendrick, Brewer and Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society, 110.
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social elite. Although Bunbury’s membership of the privileged upper classes meant that he did
not need to market his work as aggressively as a professional and socially inferior artist, he did
indulge readily in the elaborate game of aristocratic patronage. This involved the careful
cultivation and flattery of those individuals who were best placed to assist him both socially and
commercially, and this included several members of the Royal family who were known to him
personally.405 Bunbury employed a subtle combination of techniques when he marketed his own
prints and this included the use of clever dedications to powerful cultural patrons and arbiters of
taste like Horace Walpole, the Duchess of York and the Prince of Wales.406 This form of
‘celebrity endorsement’ was especially calculated to increase the desire of the audience to
purchase his prints. Josiah Wedgwood’s marketing and product placement strategies gave him
an insight into this process: ‘It is plain from a thousand instances that if you have a favourite child
you wish the public to fondle & take notice of, you have only to make choice of proper sponcers
[sic]’.407 Bunbury’s acute awareness of his potential audience and the importance of his role as
an indirect salesman was ultimately combined with an intuitive ability to harness the power of
class competition.
Bunbury’s social position gave him an appreciation of the importance of fashion and the need to
tailor-make products that reflected larger market trends. Fashion changed at an alarming speed
and the ideas that governed these changes were unstable and vacillating. John Brewer has
argued that ‘the realm of good taste […] was in fact, extremely fluid and difficult to determine’.408
Audiences altered their allegiance to producers depending on their proven ability to anticipate
fashion, while the manufacturers of exclusive products strove similarly to remain one step ahead
of a reactive public. Bunbury’s ability to anticipate these forces enabled him to skillfully position
himself as an artist able to offer the market something different. He chose to develop a form of
Bunbury’s friendship with the Duke of York resulted in his appointment as Equerry in 1787.
Richmond Hill (1782) was dedicated to Horace Walpole, while A City Hunt (1781) and The Gardens of Carleton House
(1785) were dedicated to the Prince of Wales. The Dance and The Song (1782) were both dedicated to the Duchess of
Devonshire, while The Genii. (1786) Frederick Zemmermann and The Death of Count de Peltzer (1787) were dedicated to
the Countess of Sutherland. As You Like It and The Duel of Andrew Aguecheek and Viola were personally dedicated by
Bunbury to Mrs. Jordan. Several of his Shakespeare drawings were also owned by the Duchess of York.
407
Wedgwood, writing to his business partner, Boulton. WMSS. E. 18898-6. J. W. to T. B. 19 Jun 1779.
408
Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English culture in the eighteenth century, 91.
405
406
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large-scale graphic art and subsequently utilised it as the vehicle for an ambitious panoramic
vista of ‘life’. Bunbury therefore imposed a unique snapshot of particular sections of society onto
the pre-existing format of the extended topographical print. Although this form of art existed in
the realm of uncomplicated visual decoration, it was used primarily as a means of inventorising
the material possessions of the upper classes so that even as an empty framework, it was able to
communicate a powerful subliminal message of privilege. This appealed directly to members of
the middle classes who wished to signal their wealth and their aspirational social status in terms
of visual property. Bunbury’s large-scale prints were classed as cleverly manufactured forms of
ostentatious visual display and audience groups craved them for a variety of different ‘social’
reasons. However, the ultimate ownership of Bunbury’s prints was contingent on the possession
of material wealth and a correspondingly large domestic space in which to display them to their
full advantage.
The large-scale equestrian panorama
During the 1780s London’s parks were renowned as sites of fashionable resort in which
increasingly indiscriminate and frenetic forms of social intermingling took place. Hyde Park was a
popular meeting place for all classes and it attracted members of the highest quality, including
‘the great world and the aspiring body, which hangs ever on its skirts’. Here, the leisurely pursuits
of walking, riding and driving provided opportunities for comparison and competitive social
display. As one of the attractions of London, admittance to the Park was socially exclusive and
those qualified to enter dictated that ‘ordinary people’ were to be admitted on Saturdays only.
Interestingly, Hyde Park was also a site endowed with political immunity and this ensured that
members of the social elite were brought unwittingly into contact with ‘a constant population of
unpromising individuals’. The subsequent collision of social groups created a unique and selfcontained form of entertainment in which itinerant beggars, fortunetellers and pickpockets
mingled with people of high fashion. Hyde Park consequently resembled the site of a provincial
fair and an elegant metropolitan resort alternately.
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Hyde Park‘s many leisure time distractions included ‘foot races and horse matches,’ while the
combined enthusiasm for fashion and horses coincided in a resurgence of male interest in all
forms of equestrian pursuit. The rage for equestrianism resulted in the adoption of allied
fashionable clothing and accessories and the leaders of the social elite, including many politicians
and contemporary personalities showed these off. Members of the upper classes who were able
to afford the expensive and fashionable sport of carriage driving indulged themselves in playing at
being coachmen:
That curious revival of a love of equipages, and its display in Hyde […] was preceded by
a change of fashion in dress among the men, a change which allowed the gentleman to
dress himself in the habit of his coachman and drive his own chariot in the Park. The
Whigs who surrounded Charles Fox at Brooks’s during the American War gave the
fashion a great impetus. Any time after 1780 it was quite usual to meet men of an
assured position, like Fox himself, Lord Derby, or the Duke of Norfolk, dressed with a
studied negligence in a costume suitable for following hounds or riding post. 409
Theatrical display and the pursuit of fashion were taken to extremes and the desire to emulate
‘the professional’ inspired members of the upper classes to have their teeth filed down so that
they were able to spit like real stage-coachmen.410 Women also adopted equestrian fashions and
participated enthusiastically in the rage for carriage driving. The aristocratic ‘lady whips’ included
Lady Archer who cultivated her reputation as ‘the terror of the West End’ due to the pace at which
she drove. She is caricatured in the anonymous print entitled The Portland Place A – R. Driving
without a Beau to R – D’s Perfume Warehouse, P – LL M – LL in which she is the confident driver
of a fashionable phaeton and is scandalously accompanied by a single female companion.411
This passion for riding and driving in Hyde Park superseded the outmoded and stately
promenade and was led by the fashionable Prince of Wales. He was renowned as a keen
foxhunter and ‘a dashing whip’ and his presence gave Hyde Park an added frisson of interest for
the aristocratic and ‘ordinary’ people alike. As a skilled equestrian and a member of the
fashionable elite, Bunbury was familiar with Hyde Park’s popular status as a London attraction
409
410
William B. Boulton, The Amusements of Old London (London: John C. Nimmo, 1901), 157.
Boulton, The Amusements of Old London, 159.
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and a site of social collision. In response to the amusing incongruities that resulted from the
volatile mixture of the classes, Bunbury utilised his keen observational skills to create a new form
of oblique social panorama that relied for its impact on humorous contrasts.412 In choosing to
represent Hyde Park in a large-scale format, Bunbury positioned himself at the very heart of
fashionable London and stated his intention to exploit its eclectic social composition and
fashionable universality.
Hyde Park (1781)
Engraved by Bretherton on 8 February 1781, Bunbury’s print entitled Hyde Park measures an
impressive 63.5 inches in length and 28.5 inches wide. 77 It provides a sweeping panoramic
view of human and equestrian traffic set in the metropolitan location of Hyde Park. Bunbury
crowds the picture space with minutely observed individual characters and acts as the
enthusiastic theatrical stage-manager for his impressively large cast. This includes twelve
horses, eight dogs and seventeen different individuals, four of which are dismounted pedestrians.
Despite the range and diversity of this cast, their individual actions are cleverly linked and
interrelated and every figure is given a distinctive role to play within the print. 413 These roles
approximate to very broad notions of social type and occupation, while the owners’ characters are
cleverly mirrored in their horses’ stances.
The viewer’s attention is first caught by the figures of two elderly and formally attired gentlemen
who move sedately into the picture space. Bunbury draws attention to the complexities of
viewing by introducing an element of voyeurism in the form of a gentleman who squints openly at
a lady through his eyeglass.414 Like many of Bunbury’s female figures, this individual is rendered
almost anonymous by her voluminous costume, although her social identity is affirmed by the
presence of her pageboy. She is directly contrasted with the hunched figure of a female beggar
Published by C. Clarke from No. 6 Prince’s Street on 18th June 1782. The two ladies drive past a shop that sells
(symbolically) unnatural and artificial female cosmetic preparations including ‘ivory teeth’ and ‘mouse eyebrows’.
412
Good examples include Courier Anglois (1779), A Riding House (1780), Hints to Bad Horsemen (1781) and Sir
Gregory Gigg (1781).
413
See the discussion of Tobias Smollett’s way of linking action in his novels in Lance Bertelsen, The Smollettian View of
Life in NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, Vol. II, No. 2 (Winter, 1978), pp. 115-127.
411
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seated at the side of the road, whose face is similarly obscured by a wide-brimmed hat. This tight
knot of individuals represents a narrative that exists separately from the main storyline, and in
which the basic level of human communication is symbolised by the huddle of dogs eagerly
sniffing at each other. The relationship between men and women is represented in the figure of
the male rider who makes his horse rear while casting a self-conscious glance behind him to
check the reaction of a pretty female rider. This theatrical and attention-seeking action goes
unnoticed as each character concentrates upon a narrowed field of individual concern.
It is significant that there is little genuine human communication within the print and no one holds
or retains the gaze of another, either human or animal. Only the rearing horse reflects his
master’s backward glance at the pretty woman and her delicate mount. Bunbury represents this
female rider as a picture of fashionable elegance and she appears to glide gracefully and
effortlessly through the chaotic traffic around her. Her quiet presence causes ripples of attention
to spread across the picture and she attracts the attention of a young beau who turns towards her
in a gesture of admiration.415 Behind these figures, images of action are contrasted with their
opposites as a jockey exercising a racehorse encounters another animal blocking the road and
facing in the opposite direction.416 In a clever mirroring of this paradoxically ‘static’ action, there is
fairground comedy in the rotund figure of a pedestrian who is pictured attempting to fend off the
attentions of four jumping dogs that hang off his clothes by their teeth.
As the male counterpart of the elegant female rider, Bunbury introduces the figure of a mounted
soldier into the picture space in order to symbolise martial and equestrian perfection. The
soldier’s expression is one of wry amusement and his horse disdainfully turns its head away from
the spectacle of equine and canine chaos around it. Behind the soldier, a rider tugs desperately
on the reins of his horse as it careers towards the main body of equestrian traffic. This image of
414
Bunbury uses the same image of the peering gentleman to signify cross-class curiosity in A Visit to the Camp.
See the two central female figures in Bunbury’s St. James’s Park (1783) and also Rowlandson’s obsessively repeated
motif of the observed female.
416
This strange form of ‘pillion’ saddle was in use until the mid-nineteenth century. Bunbury parodies a similar type of
pannier contraption used by the merchant classes in Me, My Wife and Daughter, one of the illustrations to his book The
Annals of Horsemanship (1791).
415
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uncontrol is balanced by the effortless ease of an upright curate who faces in the opposite
direction as a fashionably dressed young man glances quietly at the comic figure of the man and
the leaping dogs. The soldier is Bunbury’s representation of the ideal equestrian and a calm selfpossession and unpretentious ease in the saddle distinguish him. As an elegant amalgamation of
the man of fashion and the confident equestrian, Bunbury creates this figure both as his proxy
and as a stilled and impartial observer of the assorted equestrian traffic. The Everyman figure is
not included in order to directly ridicule or judge any of the characters in Hyde Park but moves
among them quietly, set apart by his stillness and unselfconscious personal dignity. Bunbury
utilises this figure to offer those within the picture, as well as the viewers outside it whose foibles
he portrays, an unthreatening and attainable ideal.
Hyde Park caters for a wide variety of viewers and the print allows each to identify with and laugh
at a series of character types. Bunbury’s vision of comic democracy is both inclusive and
exclusive as an implied self-recognition and a momentary suspension of social competition
accompany humour. Comedy acts as a brief form of social cement and like the eclectic spectacle
of a pantomime performance, the print also contains romantic flirtation, over-acting, snobbery,
military perfection, sport and fashion, as well as elements of poverty and religion. A restless
panorama of real human life is set against the backdrop of an urban pastoral. The world
portrayed by Bunbury is characterised by its vibrant and disordered nature and its inhabitants
operate under their own form of stage direction. These individuals are deeply self-absorbed and
their preoccupation in wrestling with reality creates an individual ‘play within a play’. Bunbury
acknowledges the untidy, random nature of life and portrays the unmediated mixture of classes
as simultaneously comic and chaotic. The print is characterised by its unusual attention to
individual and psychological detail and this renders it a unique celebration of disparate humanity.
The urban sporting panorama: A City Hunt (1781)
The vast panoramic vista of A City Hunt was published on the same day as Hyde Park and
measures a similarly impressive 68.5 inches long and 28.5 inches wide. 78 It was dedicated to
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the twenty year old George Prince of Wales as the symbolic arbiter of aristocratic and refined
equestrian taste.417 The combination of the novelty of its size and its popular sporting theme
made the print appealing to a large audience. Hunting was a widely enjoyed form of rural
pastime and it possessed a particular relevance for the upper classes. Stella Walker notes that in
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ‘racing and hunting subjects provided the most important
commissions for the sporting artist, as these activities remained the fashionable pastimes of the
wealthy aristocracy’.
A devotion to animals and nature had always remained a basic quality of the Englishman
whether it was the noble lord following hounds on his wide estate or the villager illicitly
snaring a rabbit or a pheasant in the woods at night […] in England this age-old love of
sport could be considered a peculiar national trait that was not confined, as on the
continent, almost solely to royalty and the court. The Englishman’s home was not a
castle but a country house where he could keep horses and hounds, and try to breed
them faster and finer than his neighbour.418
During the latter part of the eighteenth century, the fast-paced and exciting foxhunt superseded
the ‘more leisurely pursuit of the hare and stag’. Foxhunting ceased to be a small event involving
a group of neighbouring landowners and became a fully regimented occupation, involving great
hunts like the Badminton, the Pytchley and the Quorn. 419 Like culture, sport increasingly became
part of a shared public experience and this had the allied effect of increasing social emulation. 420
Stella Walker has also identified that a ‘new leisured class’ possessed both the time and the
disposable income ‘to support and enjoy organized and sophisticated sport’. While the pastimes
of hunting and horseracing had once been the preserve of the privileged elite, they now became
‘important status symbols for a much wider circle’.421
By combining a love of animals with a love of country sports, hunting assumed a universal and
idealistically classless quality. Despite its aristocratic pedigree, hunting was regarded as
417
It is probable that Bunbury met the Prince of Wales through his brother Thomas Charles who was a talented breeder
and racer of horses. He was later made the Steward of the Jockey Club and a letter from the Prince of Wales is found in
Bunbury, The Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart., 398-399.
418
‘It has been said that Walpole opened the letters from his gamekeeper and huntsman before those of his sovereign’.
Stella A. Walker, Sporting Art: England 1700-1900 (London: Studio Vista, 1972), 9.
419
Trevelyan, Illustrated English Social History, 209-1
420
McKendrick, Brewer and Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society, 284.
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peculiarly ‘English’ and it was defended by its supporters as an egalitarian and national pastime.
The idea of Englishness assumed particular importance at a time when such self-confident
constructions were threatened both by internal and external pressures. Commentators boasted
that ‘the humblest man in the population, provided only that he be decent and well-behaved, may
ride by the side of a duke when both are in pursuit of a fox; but in what other country but dear old
England could such a right be seen?’422 Hunting was consequently identified as a means by
which different social classes were able to establish an area of natural or common ground.
Equestrian sport was a pastime in which ‘status’ was apparently judged ‘not by birth but by
horses and horsemanship’ and Bunbury realised this statement in graphic form.
However, despite the emphasis upon an Englishman’s freedom to do as he pleased, distinctions
continued to be made between the ‘natural born’ hunter and the part-time sportsman or social
parvenu. The enthusiastic but socially inferior hunter was tolerated as a unique example of
English originality and this meant that ‘Morris, the butcher of Melton Mowbray’ who wore his blue
apron when he rode with the Quorn was celebrated rather than ridiculed. However, the
indulgence of isolated examples of English eccentricity was distinguished from the condoning of
large-scale infiltration of the social elite by the middle classes. In some locations the derided
comic construction of the ‘Cockney sportsman’ was known to exist and it was rumoured that a city
merchant living in Croydon could hunt with ‘foxhounds, staghounds or beagles’ and still be home
for dinner. There was comedy in the transformation of a joke into flesh and blood reality, but the
laughter occasioned by the vision of the ‘Cockney sportsman’ also contained an element of
unease.423 79
As with other forms of fashionable pastime, distinctions were made between the different ‘types’
of hunter and these were based not only on social class, but also on gender. 424 The sport of
421
Walker, Sporting Art: England 1700-1900, 54.
R. F. Ball and T. Gilbey, The Essex Foxhounds (London, 1896), 101.
See Gillray’s Cockney Sportsman series (1800) but also his Hounds in Full Cry, Hounds Throwing Off and Coming in
at the Death (1800). Both sets published by H. Humphrey.
424
R. S. Surtees noted that ‘Women have no business out hunting’ – no respectable young women that is’. Quoted in
Stella A. Walker, Sporting Art: England 1700-1900 (London: Studio Vista, 1972), 126.
422
423
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hunting was associated with intensely masculine, martial qualities and it was celebrated as an
important preparation and training ground for battle. In his treatise Thoughts upon Hunting
(1779), William Beckford, noted unequivocally that ‘foxhunting is a kind of warfare, its
uncertainties, its fatigues, its difficulties, and its dangers, render it interesting above all
diversions’.425 Hunting was accorded an elevated social status due to its vaunted ability to ‘teach’
the aristocracy the art of gentlemanly, but still vigorous and aggressive warfare.
to be acquainted with the management of horses and arms are talents equally common
to the warrior and the hunter. A familiarity with address, bodily exercise and fatigue, so
necessary to support courage, is found in the chace, and carried into the field of battle.426
This was especially pertinent during a period of increased military activity at home and abroad, in
which civilian power structures were increasingly being overlaid with a formal military framework.
Many contemporaries believed that without hunting, the unique genetic ‘breed’ of English
masculinity would deteriorate and be fatally diluted.427 The image of the hunting Englishman was
therefore imposed directly onto the image of the martial Englishman until the two became
indistinguishable.
A City Hunt provides a mock-heroic approximation of the noble and socially exclusive sport of
foxhunting, reinterpreted within a semi-urban setting. Although entitled A City Hunt, the print
bears a strong resemblance to contemporary paintings of race meetings, something with which
Bunbury was familiar through his connections with the worlds of horse breeding and
horseracing.428 At the time that Bunbury’s print was published, the only national race meeting
was held at Newmarket and this was a cosmopolitan and rowdy event during which spectators on
horseback galloped behind the race, shouting. Like any public pleasure ground, the racecourse
425
David Perkins, Romanticism and Animal Rights, 65.
Perkins, Romanticism and Animal Rights, 66.
427
The discussion of the English ‘Breed’ in Jeremy Paxman, The English: A Portrait of a People (Michael Joseph, 1998).
428
It was ‘under the driving force of Sir Charles Bunbury, finest judge of a horse in his day, [that] the five classic races
were founded between 1778 and 1814. These supreme tests, all for three year olds, the St. Leger, the Derby, and the
Two Thousand Guineas, and for fillies only, the Oaks and the Thousand Guineas, were to establish the ideal type of
Thoroughbred’. Stella A. Walker, Sporting Art: England 1700-1900 (London: Studio Vista, 1972), 95.
426
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was renowned for its social intermingling and clothing was used to disguise and confuse
considerations of rank.
the vast company of horsemen on the plain at a match contains all mankind on equal
footing from the Duke to the country peasant. Nobody wears swords, but are clothed
suitable to the humour and design of the place for horse sports. Every body strives to
out-jockey (as the phrase is) one another! 429
Bunbury’s print draws heavily upon the complex system of values and beliefs held by the most
privileged section of society, but it also appeals to an audience that wishes to participate
vicariously in that system. The calculated breadth of this appeal is reflected in the fact that the
print targets the audiences for hunting and for racing and contains references common to both
sports. Set against the sweeping stretch of part rural and part urban space, the image combines
the excitement of a public race meeting with that of a hunt. Bunbury utilised his ‘insider’
knowledge of these worlds to create a series of realistically observed and entertaining forms of
equestrian ‘in-joke’ for his peers and for his audience at large.
Bunbury portrays a socially mixed clientele involved in the unconscious creation of a large-scale
and comic spectacle. Like its companion print, A City Hunt contains an extended cast of at least
twenty figures, eleven of which are participating directly in riding with the hunt. Two carriages
filled with eager spectators are seen in the left-hand portion of the print while trees, signposts and
a starting post provide a series of vertical interruptions within the insistent linear and undulating
form of the print.430 The figures are individually delineated and combine to form several illassorted social groups in which both spectators and participants are thrown together in a
relentless headlong dash. The chase is led by an intent-looking individual mounted on a
diminutive horse and this sets the comic tone of the print; directly behind, two riders jostle against
each other and struggle to control their leaping horses. In the background, spectators peer over
the sides of an open carriage while a second and larger group loll and drape themselves over a
429
Trevelyan, Illustrated English Social History, 50.
The oddly shaped structure in the print is similar in outline to the Duke of Portland’s stand in the right side of John Nost
Sartorius’s painting The Duke of Bedford’s Grey Diomed beating HRH the Prince of Wales’s Traveller over the Beacon
Course at Newmarket for 500 gns. on 8th May 1790 completed in the same year.
430
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closed vehicle driven by two women. In the same way as the females pictured in Hyde Park are
strangely anonymous, the features of these women too are almost totally obscured by their
excessively bulky dress and head wear. The only other female in the print is pictured just below
them as a tiny but jauntily upright figure riding sidesaddle and sporting an elaborately feathered
hat. Bunbury is meticulous in his observation of fashionable and equestrian-inspired items of
dress. His characterisation of both male and female figures is enhanced by his enthusiasm for
the details of theatrical and social costuming. 431
Equestrian chaos reigns behind the figure of the lady; one rider leans forward in a gallop with his
hat crammed tightly on his head, while another has lost his hat and is pictured with his long hair
flying out behind him. In the background, coachmen are seen valiantly pulling on their reins as
carriage horses alternately rear up and tumble over each other.432 The remainder of the picture
space is filled with a variety of action as horses stumble and riders are captured in ungraceful
mid-air somersaults. The parody of a ‘man of fashion’ leans back in his saddle with dangerous
bravado as he approaches a ditch and the exaggerated stiffness of both horse and rider make
them appear almost toy-like. The scene is characterised by its animation and an insistent forward
momentum increases the viewer’s sense of vicarious participation in the action. Bunbury’s riders
are ingénue ‘cockney’ sportsmen who display an excess of enthusiasm, but little real talent or flair
for horsemanship. Their lack of social grace is represented by their inappropriate dress and their
loosely flying hair and lost hats. All riders struggle vainly to control their horses but are instead
carried forward by them in a headlong rush. 80
Bunbury creates an engaging carnival atmosphere within his print and this impels the viewer to
participate in the slapstick action and reaction. The comedy is fresh and spontaneous and while
the theme of horsemanship hints at social difference, there is no malice involved in the portrayal
of class. While Bunbury’s urban hunters lack vital equestrian knowledge, the humour of the print
In Thomas Gooch’s beautiful 1782 painting of the Hon. Marcia and Hon. George Pitt Riding in the Park at Stratfield
Saye House Marcia Pitt’s riding habit and feathered hat is the epitome of contemporary female ‘equestrian’ fashion. In the
collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia, USA.
432
Bunbury’s images of equestrian chaos are continually recycled by Bunbury from c.1799 onwards.
431
208
underlines the fact that the horses remain in ultimate control over the riders. Nature is
represented as vital, impetuous and relentless and in this print it has seemingly regained control
over urban man. The ability to tame and subdue nature is indirectly associated with a form of
class superiority and Bunbury hints that good horsemanship, like good breeding, may be
instinctive but it can also be learned. There is the hope that equestrian skill and mastery is
‘democratic’ but there is also the sense of impending danger in this equality of effort. These
cockney sportsmen may become proficient in the management of their horses, but Bunbury
underlines the fact that they are participants in what is an essentially new and alien activity for
them. The attempts to transfer ‘noble’ country pursuits into an urban setting, along with the
change in the social composition of the participants are included in Bunbury’s joke. The print’s
comedy hinges on the immediate and instinctive reaction of the audience to the incongruity of the
subject, as well as to the detailed observation of amusing equestrian misadventure.
Although Bunbury’s print is capable of communicating on a number of different psychological
levels, its target audience is undoubtedly aristocratic and this is emphasised by the cleverly
targeted dedication to the fashionable, horse-loving Prince of Wales. The ability to purchase
such a large and expensive print was confined to those belonging to Bunbury’s own class, or
those most closely aspiring to it. These individuals wished to join the ranks of the social elite and
viewed the appropriation of culture as an important part of the game of belonging. By purchasing
art produced by an impeccably connected gentleman amateur, the middle class audience was
able to emulate the buying habits of its social superiors. Bunbury’s print represented an
aspirational purchase and by displaying this large scale work in a prominent place within their
homes, the middle classes were able to signal to their acquaintance that they were accepted by
and acceptable to a superior social class. Bunbury’s epic social panorama was therefore
pleasing to two separate audience types. Members of the upper classes could smile at the comic
treatment of the middle class upstarts ‘hunting’ in urban London, while the middle class could
appreciate the universal humour associated with equestrian misadventure, without recognising
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themselves as the intended targets. One was amused by his art, while the other took it more
seriously. For the middle classes this was not just art, but an important symbol of belonging.
Social and equestrian chaos: Richmond Hill (1782)
Bunbury continued his large-scale, equestrian themed art with a print entitled Richmond Hill. The
drawing was number 536 in the Royal Academy exhibition in April 1781and William Dickinson
later published the print on 1 Mar 1782.433 81 Bunbury image depicts fashionable London as an
unmediated meeting place for a random assortment of social classes, symbolised by different
types of equestrian. He fills the picture space with an animated muddle of carriages and riders
and catalogues the contemporary press of traffic in minute detail. The sense of vibrant
movement threatens to overwhelm the ability of the viewer to process images in which Bunbury
draws attention to a more serious cultural debate. The ideas upon which he touches are linked in
particular to a change in the contemporary attitude towards the treatment of animals.
Fellow feeling for animals, compassion, kindness, friendship and affection is expressed in
every time and place and culture. In England, however, in the latter part of the
eighteenth century, there was a gradual, eventually enormous increase in the frequency
of such expressions. Kindness to animals was urged and repeated in sermons, treaties,
pamphlets, journals, manuals of animal care, encyclopedias, scientific writings, novels,
literature for children, and poems.434
This tendency was expressed in the graphic depiction of animal subjects, especially in the
anthropomorphic tendency to endow animals with elements of personality and character. David
Perkins has identified the existence of a ‘close connection between the cultural world […] with its
ideals of sympathy, sentiment and nature, and the tender attitudes expressed […] about animals’.
The way in which animals were portrayed in art and literature was believed to reflect the
artist/author’s own personality, but it also referred more widely to all suffering agents. Writings
about animals consequently ‘spread nets of figuration to allude also and vicariously to children,
women, servants, the lower classes, slaves, colonised peoples, and other races’.435
BM 6143. Reynolds’ portrait of Master Bunbury, Henry’s eldest son, was also exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1781.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Johnson Collection.
434
Perkins, Romanticism and Animal Rights, ix.
435
Perkins, Romanticism and Animal Rights, x.
433
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While cruelty to animals is temporarily foregrounded in Bunbury’s print, busy human traffic
continues to whirl obliviously around its edges. A stationary phaeton occupies a central position
within the picture space and the two thin horses pulling it have refused to move any further. A
grim faced man raises his whip as the driver leans forward to hit a horse with his cane. Both
male figures wear set expressions on their faces, but the females in the phaeton continue to
laugh and one copies her male companion, leaning forward to brandish a whip. The physical
stance of the horses’ owner and the harsh treatment of the horses is reminiscent of The Second
Stage of Cruelty in Hogarth’s 1751 series which highlighted the widespread mistreatment of
animals.436 82 The carriage horse in Hogarth’s print is beaten to the ground by its cruel master
because it no longer has the strength to pull an overloaded carriage; in Bunbury’s print, the
contrast is drawn between use value and fashion. The women laughingly and unconsciously
copy the actions of the men, primarily because they are caught up in the excitement of an
enjoyable outing. The horses are viewed as inanimate objects whose presence is necessary
simply to convey the company to their ultimate destination. By treating animals in this way, the
passengers exhibit an unconscious form of brutality towards them. In contrast, the horses’ owner
betrays a form of conscious cruelty as a direct response to the anxiety that he will not receive
payment from the fashionable party if the horses refuse to move.
Bunbury notes and subtly condemns these actions by associating them with the ignorance of a
particular social class. In 1799, an anonymous pamphlet entitled The Hare asserted that the
charge of cruelty ‘is only applicable to the most stupid, ignorant and uncivilised part of our
countrymen. Those of a higher rank and knowledge are far more humane and benevolent’.437
This suggests that the emotion of sympathy was at least partly dependent upon allocated social
class and ‘breeding’ so that the way in which an audience responds to animals was directly
related to factors including education and cultural positioning. David Perkins notes that this form
436
See the discussion of The Four Stages of Cruelty in Uglow, Hogarth: A Life and a World, 500-506. Plate two is
accompanied by the following verse: ‘The generous Steed in hoary Age/Subdu’d by Labour lies/And moans a Cruel
Master’s rage/While Nature Strength denies’.
437
Quoted in Perkins, Romanticism and Animal Rights, 71.
211
of sympathy with nature ‘presupposed at least a moderate income’, a view that is supported by
Amit S. Rai.
To be at liberty to sympathise with another, one must be free from want, from poverty.
Which would seem to imply that Sympathy is less a Question of nature than a matter of
material, social positing. […] Sympathy is always a modality of power – to exercise
sympathy is always to be in some sort of position of privilege, however limited, however
imaginary.438
Bunbury’s attitude of condemnation is not clear-cut; the master’s ignorance is born of economic
concern and the fashionable party displays signs of a blinkered ignorance supposedly
characteristic of the urban middle classes. These individuals have lost their connection with
nature and are wholly unaware of the psycological and social ‘cost’ and the wider impact of their
fashionable outing. To underline the conscious and unconscious nature of this situation, the
party’s stationary plight is contrasted with an example of dizzying mobility. As the carriage party
flounders, a high-wheeled vehicle is driven past them at speed, illustrating what well-fed luxury
can buy. The dashing male driver looks back over his shoulder and laughs at the metropolitan
day-trippers, viewing them as part-time dabblers in the equestrian world. Carriage driving
represents a serious sport for this individual and his sleek and expertly cared-for horse provides a
stark contrast with the grounded and depressing realism of the thin, hired phaeton hacks.
While the main body of the print is filled with an assortment of busy equestrian traffic, the
darkened foreground includes a collection of figures intently engaged in acting out their own play
of life. These constitute a series of self-contained narratives that are intimately linked with the
slower-paced existence that runs parallel to the noise, bustle and excitement of the life
represented by Bunbury. The viewer is subsequently offered a series of choices regarding
possible levels of engagement in theatrical performance. The pedestrian figures are included
within the picture as embodiments of the external viewer’s reactions, and these vary from
detached observation and curiosity to a form of reluctant participation. Bunbury stresses the fact
that each individual is enclosed within a private world, so that each rider and each carriage group
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is self-contained and symbolises a different social type or character. This segregation raises
questions regarding the degree of social interaction within the society that Bunbury portrays; it
also acknowledges the viewer’s varying detachment from and involvement with the print.
The figures in the foreground are presided over by the silhouette of a man who occupies the
position of an anonymous observer of human and equestrian chaos. He remains static, while
everything around him is in a state of flux and his stillness draws attention to the restlessness of
the unfolding visual panorama. While the dark figure may represent either Bunbury himself or
Horace Walpole as the picture’s dedicatee, his presence also recalls earlier images in which a
single figure, or a group of figures, is included in depictions of landed property. This tradition was
continued in landscape art where the foregrounded presence of a figure was used to convey
scale and perspective while at the same time establishing the human ownership of nature.439 As
the artist’s proxy, this figure is presented as the final owner and judge of the scene and in this
position he is able to both stand back from and immerse himself in the extended visual
panorama. Standing apart, the figure’s otherness and the implied impulse to compose and
objectify what he sees is affirmed. The act of viewing involves the making of choices and
Bunbury acknowledges his own dichotomous nature in being both detached from and involved in
the life that he composes. This provides an intimate link between Bunbury and Thomas
Rowlandson, who portrayed individuals unable to make the choice between a vibrant and living
reality and a vicarious involvement in life, mediated by art.440 83
It is significant that Bunbury chose to present the original drawing of Richmond Hill to Horace
Walpole. The gift was in lieu of thanks for the generous praise that Walpole had lavished upon
him in his Anecdotes of Painting (1780), including his estimation that Bunbury was ‘the second
438
Amit S. Rai, Rule of Sympathy: Sentiment, Race, and Power 1750-1850 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), 55.
Following the ideal classical landscapes of Claude Lorraine (1600-1682), see the proponents of the English landscape
genre including Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) and Richard Wilson (1714-1782).
440
See Rowlandson’s The Historian animating the mind of the Young Painter (1784).
439
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Hogarth’.441 Walpole was especially pleased with the picture and responded promptly to
Bunbury’s generosity and thanked him in elaborate style:
I am just come, Sr, from the Royal Academy, where I had been immediately struck, as I
always am by yr Works, by a most capital Drawing of Richmond Hill – but what was my
Surprise and Pleasure – for I fear the Latter preceded my modesty – when I found yr note
& read that so very fine a Performance was destined for me! This is a true picture of my
Emotions, Sr – but I hope you will believe that I am not less sincere when I assure you,
that the first Moment’s reflection told me how infinitely, Sr, you think of overpaying me for
the poor, tho just, tribute of my praise in a trifling Work, whose chief merit is its having
avoided Flattery. Your Genius, Sr, cannot want That, & still less, my Attestation; but
when you condescend to reward This, I doubt I shall be a little vain, for when I shall have
such a certificate to produce, how will it be possible to remain quite humble! I must beg
you, Sr, to accept my warmest & most gratefull thanks, which are doubled by your
ingenious Delicacy in delivering me in this very agreable manner from the pain I felt in
fearing that I had taken too much liberty with you. 442
Horace Walpole signalled his admiration for Bunbury’s drawing of Richmond Hill by hanging it in a
prominent position on one of the staircases at Strawberry Hill. 443 Like members of the
aspirational middle class, Walpole displayed Bunbury’s picture where it could be seen and
admired by the many visitors to his theatrical showcase home.444 Possession of a fashionable
piece of art conveyed the owner’s refined taste and ability to understand and respond correctly to
its cultural ‘message’. This included the interpretation of subtle ‘in-jokes’ conveyed through the
use of known symbols, motifs and implicit subliminal ‘learning’. For Bunbury, Richmond Hill
marked the beginning of a triumphant phase in his artistic career. The drawing gained notoriety
as a direct result of Walpole’s fulsome praise, while the print made from the original drawing
proved to be successful in its own right and was later translated by Rowlandson (1799). 84
Richmond Hill enabled Bunbury to incorporate his combined love of horses and people into a
large-scale contemporary scene. He amalgamated individual character with social type and
See Riely, Horace Walpole and the ‘second Hogarth’, 28-44.
Walpole to Bunbury, 28 April 1781, The Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. Mrs. Paget Toynbee. (Oxford, 1903-5), XI, 43435. Despite Walpole’s enthusiasm for Bunbury’s work, their personal relationship remained on a polite and formal, rather
than an intimate level. Bunbury visited Strawberry Hill once in August 1789 and was rejected by Walpole as a tenant for
Little Strawberry Hill in 1791.
443
See the exhaustive inventory of Walpole’s possessions in Horace Walpole, A Description of the Villa of Mr. Horace
Walpole, Youngest Son of Sir Robert Walpole Earl of Orford at Strawberry Hill near Twickenham, Middlesex, with an
Inventory of the Furniture, Pictures, Curiosities, &c (1784) (London: The regg Press, 1964), 17.
444
See the discussion of Little Strawberry Hill in the article by McKinney, ‘‘The Castle of my Ancestors’: Horace Walpole
and Strawberry Hill’, 199-212.
441
442
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represented horses as the visual extensions of their owners’ character and rank. Bunbury’s
confident use of the equestrian motif added an extra dimension to his prints and conveyed
personality and dramatic history in a refreshing and innovatory manner. Richmond Hill also
represents an interesting early representation of Londoners en masse and offers the viewer an
image of sustained and chaotic human traffic. As a humanitarian and ‘curious’ artist, Bunbury
finds the unmediated collision of social classes both inspiring and fascinating and he portrays the
event as a vibrant and arresting spectacle. Richmond Hill therefore represents a pleasing image
and one that is capable of raising complex questions regarding the viewer’s dual facility and
ability to ‘see’. Bunbury is both included within the social and equestrian scene as the ideal
horseman and gentleman and detached from it as an artist and impartial observer. The
assumption of a simultaneous artistic distance and humanitarian proximity enables him to
highlight the ambivalence and dichotomy of this slice of contemporary society.
Social observation and visual performance
Bunbury turned from the representation of social naiveté through equestrian foibles to a detailed
examination of an enclosed ‘indoor‘ society engaged in the less physically active pastimes of
dancing and gossiping. In keeping with the inclusion of recognisable fashionable spaces,
Bunbury chose Bath as the generic location for two of his most famous prints entitled The Long
Minuet as danced at Bath and The Propagation of a Lie (1787). Bath was widely regarded as the
most fashionable spa destination in Europe and it advertised itself as a popular resort for health
and recreational tourism. The unmediated collision of different social classes and the eccentric
jumble of characters found in Bath were subjects regularly touched upon in contemporary art and
literature. Tobias Smollett’s novel Humphry Clinker (1771) is particularly graphical in its
evocation of the city’s intensive and eccentric form of ‘social mixture’ and contemporaries were
habitually used to the clash of polite and popular culture that took place in Bath. 445
See Lance Bertelsen, ‘The Smollettian View of Life in NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction,’ Vol. II, No. 2 (Winter, 1978), pp.
115-127. This is also catalogued by Rowlandson in his 12 plate Comforts of Bath series, published in 1798.
445
215
[Bath was] crowded with valetudinarian politicians, retired soldiers, gouty squires, and
rich widows taking its medicinal waters, visited by mothers and daughters in pursuit of
suitable husbands and frequented by young men in search of eligible heiresses, it was a
city of quackery, leisure and intrigue. As metropolitan as London, from which it drew
many of its visitors, it offered a variety of pleasures for the healthy and a diversion to the
sick. 446
Visitors travelled to Bath in order to ‘take the waters,’ but also to participate in the city’s vibrant
social life. Bath boasted a surprisingly wide range of entertainments and ‘civilised pleasures’ and
these included a Theatre Royal, ‘luxury shops and other agreeable distractions’. The
sophistication of its social life during the 1770s and 1780s was such that many cultural activities
and tourist-centred businesses and show rooms in Bath actually ‘outshone those of the capital’.
Bath possessed ‘exactly the right air of festivity and conspicuous consumption’ to generate and
support a multitude of artistic business endeavours.447 The socially mixed clientele attracted to
Bath formed a conveniently captive audience for artists and enterprising businessmen alike and,
with time on their hands, the commission and purchase of art became part of the round of
fashionable pleasures in Bath. As John Hayes has noted: ‘one of the principal diversions was to
lounge in the showroom of artists studios and to have one’s portrait taken’.448 In this competitive
atmosphere, artistic products were required to be at the very cutting-edge of fashion and
customers required gratification to be as instantaneous as possible.
While Bath was patronised by the fashionable elite, it was also criticised for its lack of
discrimination and its derivative nature. Social commentators emphasised its clumsy attempts to
recreate the London social scene and Horace Walpole reserved particular criticism for its
provinciality. He viewed the attempts of ‘watering places’ to copy the London original as
fraudulent and deeply disturbing of a precarious social balance and pronounced the end products
to be the equivalent of ‘abigails in cast gowns’.449 It is significant that Walpole associated a site of
indiscriminate social mixing with the adoption of ‘veiled’ disguises. In doing so, he intimates that
only a select audience is able to distinguish the true nature hidden beneath elaborate costuming
446
The painter Gainsborough lived in Bath from 1759-1774.
Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English culture in the eighteenth century, 299.
448
John Hayes, Foreword to Pickpocketing the Rich: Portrait Painting in Bath 1720-1800, An exhibition at the Holborne
Museum of Art, Bath, 25 June to 15 September 2002 (Frome & London: Butler & Tanner Ltd., 2002), 7.
447
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and disguise. Ladies’ maids attired in their mistresses’ cast-off clothes are viewed literally as the
hollow casts of the unique and socially superior original. However, the ability to correctly identify
social parvenus and to penetrate beneath the veneer of physical disguise remained vacillating, in
the same way as the act of viewing was itself dependent upon character and location.
Bath was strongly associated with the notion of visual spectacle, both real and perceived, as well
as with the nature of disguise and observation. It was the place to which people came in order to
observe others and to be observed in turn. Attendance at Bath was linked with a form of
theatrical performance and this required a suspension of disbelief and prolonged participation in
the entertaining game of disguise. The primacy of ‘surface’ was reflected in the all-encompassing
importance of external appearance and the ability to convince others of an intrinsic social worth
through the discriminating use of clothes and image. A rigid hierarchy of watching was linked to
those who were socially qualified to operate as the active or the passive observer – the one
looking, or the one being looked at. Deirdre Shauna Lynch has argued convincingly that the
social world is divided ‘between those qualified to observe and those who are objects of others’
observation’.450 Despite this covert form of undeclared class warfare, Bath retained the magical
promise of cultural license attendant upon the temporary blurring of social distinction there. Like
the theatrical masquerade, the possibility of being somebody else or of disguising oneself in order
to adopt a new persona was part of the city’s appeal.451 However, those who aspired to the
appearance of nobility and cultural belonging were continually reminded of the tenuous and
temporal nature of Bath’s fairytale ‘Cinderella’ effect.452
A Long Minuet as danced at Bath (1787)
A Long Minuet as Danced at Bath is an extended piece of social observation on a grand scale
and was engraved and published by William Dickinson on 25 June 1787. 85 In it, Bunbury inverts
449
Quoted in George, Hogarth to Cruikshank: Social Change in Graphic Satire, 151.
Lynch, The Economy of Character: Novels, Market Culture and the Business of Inner Meaning, 83
The shallowness of human nature is reflected in an article in The World entitled ‘On the art of not knowing people’:
‘Persons of distinction meet their inferiors in public places […] without having the least recollection of them, whom, but a
week or a day before they had been particularly intimate with’. Unattributed quote in George, Hogarth to Cruikshank:
Social Change in Graphic Satire, 151.
450
451
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ideas relateing to beauty in order to produce an image full of burlesque comic contrasts. The
metropolitan sophistication of the minuet is undermined by a succession of awkward Bath visitors
and it is humorously intimated that these individuals are more familiar with provincial countrydances. Bunbury highlights the mixed social nature of Bath society and emphasises the fact that
the majority of its visitors are incapable of reaching either the Hogarthian or the Shakespearean
‘ideal’ of graceful movement. Their inexperience in the art of dancing is allied with an assumed
lack of social skill and a corresponding lack of class sophistication. The depiction of a series of
characters engaged in a pastime or physical activity is a recurring theme in Bunbury’s work and
this presents him with the opportunity to focus on the dynamics of a crowd as well as on detailed
individual characterisation. In a departure from his other large-scale prints, Bunbury limits himself
to the representation of a single strip of figures, rather than an amorphous jumble. However, this
strip includes a large cast and a series of linked chains of individual action and reaction take
place within it. The scene is pared down to the bare minimum so that the characters stand out
like popular ‘decoupage’ silhouettes against a completely blank background.
Bunbury’s print depicts a total of ten fashionably dressed couples engaged in a complicated
series of dance movements. Each figure is finely detailed and characterised, and each group
forms a series of self-contained units and expressions of individuality. Bunbury highlights the
characters’ expressions of studied concentration and their determination to master the task of
performing a minuet successfully. The image recalls Smollett’s description of class collision and
the ‘impudent plebeians’ who ‘hobble country dances and cotillions among the lordlings, squires,
counsillors and clergy’.453 The print is also strongly reminiscent of Hogarth’s unfinished painting
entitled The Wedding Dance from the Happy Marriage series (c.1745) and bears a strong
resemblance to the smoothly revealing depiction of dancers in one of the two explanatory prints in
his Analysis of Beauty (1753).454 86 The visually perceptive Horace Walpole noted that the
principal figures in this plate by Hogarth were ‘two samples of grace in a young lord and lady that
452
This is my short-hand term for the process of temporary transformation.
Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, 37.
454
The Wedding Dance (c.1745), South London Art Gallery, on loan to the Tate Gallery.
453
218
are extremely stiff and affected. They are a Bath beau and a country beauty’.455 Bunbury’s print
depicts a similar amalgamation of beauty and incongruity. 456
The burlesque humour of Bunbury’s print is reinforced by the inclusion of two Latin inscriptions.
These are attributed to Horace, but have been subtly altered by Bunbury in order to heighten the
intellectual and viewing pleasure of his audience. Bunbury’s reputation for good classical
scholarship was a direct result of his culturally privileged background and education. He
therefore uses his knowledge of language and literature to communicate both overtly and covertly
with other members of the upper class and thereby heightens their appreciation of comic
incongruity. The inscription ‘Longa Tysonum Minuit Quod Velit et possit rerum concordia discors’
below combines two quotations from Horace in which there is a witty play on ‘long’, ‘Tyson’ and
‘minuet’.457 The inscription ‘Bos, Fur, Sus, atque sacerdos’ above refers to an ‘Ox, Thief, Pig and
Priest, remains less clearly attributable. However, the combination of specific human with animal
types is symbolic, as the ‘pig’ refers to ‘Prince Bladud’, the founder of Bath and to the sins of
greed and lust. The ‘Ox’ is a beast of burden, the ‘Thief’ hints at the abundance of material
wealth in Bath and the ‘Priest’ is an administrator of spiritual health. When these symbols are
viewed in conjunction with one another, Bath becomes a meeting place for the basic component
parts of life, including lust, work, material wealth and a ‘religion’ of sorts. George Ellis’s verse
descants upon the legendary mixture of beauty and incongruity on show in Bath.
BATH, the divine Hygeia’s favour’d child,
Where Pigs were once, and Princes now are boil’d,
Where Arts and Elegance have fix’d their seat,
And Graces ply, like Chairmen – in the street;
Where free from Lingr’ing Education’s plan,
By which the Brute is polish’d into Man
We learn a shorter and more pleasing road,
And grow (like beef) by stewing – Alamode.458
455
Quoted in George, Hogarth to Cruikshank: Social Change in Graphic Satire, 151.
The awkward dancers were reproduced in Bunbury’s large print entitled A Riding School (1780).
Horace, Odes II, XVI, 30. The remainder quotes line 19 of Epistles I, 12. Explanation taken from an examination of A
Long Minuet in Pickpocketing the Rich: Portrait Painting in Bath, 1720-1800, 90. An exhibition at the Holborne Museum of
Art, Bath, 25 June to 15 September 2002.
458
George Ellis, Bath: Its Beauties and Amusements (Bath, 1776), 3.
456
457
219
Bunbury’s vision of Bath is not as viciously satirical as Ellis’s is, but he is able to provide a clever
manipulation of established views of the city’s combined elegance and provinciality and the clash
of high and low culture that took place there. By associating the dancers’ figures with farm
animals, Bunbury signals their untutored and provincial nature and the fact that they conform to
recognisable social ‘types’. These range from the cheerful amateur to the consummate
professional and various social stereotypes encountered at provincial and society balls. The
figures are also strongly theatrical and their posture and exaggerated mannerisms symbolise their
status as performers in a comic entertainment while Bunbury offers the viewer an insight into
social playacting. Bath is presented as the ideal location for this comedy precisely because of its
reputation as a site of unregulated and chaotic social intermingling. Although Bunbury comments
on the dancers’ lack of metropolitan polish, he also highlights their realism and their vital and
dynamic human nature. An inscribed copy of A Long Minuet held in a private collection hints at
the possibility that the print also contains gentle caricatures of contemporary members of Bath
society. Names appear above each figure and these include the politician Lord North, Bath’s
Master of Ceremonies Mr. Tyson and even Bunbury’s wife, Catherine. 459 This is a testament to
Bunbury’s enthusiasm for drawing ‘from life’ and his unconscious urge to include the real and the
familiar in order to please his audience.
In choosing to situate his print in Bath, Bunbury was immediately able to reach a large and
socially diverse audience. Viewers responded to his image on a number of different levels, but
also because it gave graphic shape to familiar experience. Bunbury’s print was innovative
interms of its structure, while its ambitious physical size lent the extended social panorama added
impact. The finished, saleable item was produced from a total of four plates joined together to
form a continuous comic strip measuring almost seven feet in length. 460 Its size meant that it was
an extremely expensive item and this heady combination of innovation and exclusivity increased
its fashionable appeal and established Bunbury’s reputation as a serious producer of large-scale
‘Certainly, the lady is the only female figure in the print that is not ungainly or ugly, and could well be meant for
Bunbury’s wife Catherine Horneck’. Correspondence dated 1995 in Victoria Art Gallery files.
460
The print measures 26.9 cm x 212.5 cm.
459
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art. The poet William Cowper acknowledged the attraction and novelty of Bunbury’s prints and
likened him to a pioneering manufacturer of graphic art when he noted that: ‘Bunbury sells
humour by the yard, and is, I suppose, the first Vender of it who ever did so’.461 He also wished
that ‘such caricature could be matched with verse and even set to music, to make the world ‘die
of laughing’. It is of note that William Hogarth’s Harlot’s Progress (1733) was set to music and
Bunbury’s print was also the inspiration for a scene in John O’Keefe’s The Lord Mayor’s Day: or,
a Flight from Lapland.462 The performance was given on 9th November 1795 at the Theatre Royal
in Covent Garden and actors performed a ‘long minuet’ set inside a fictitious dance school. 463
This transformation of a static work of graphic art into a moving and 3-dimensional theatrical
entertainment is a testament to the popularity of Bunbury’s print and the widespread currency of
its particular brand of humour. The reanimation of the stilled forms that Bunbury drew ‘from life’
also highlights the pleasing circularity inherent in the creative process. 464 87
Although the print was not one of the 46 pieces that Bunbury exhibited at the Royal Academy
between 1770 and 1808, A Long Minuet as Danced at Bath illustrates Bunbury’s increased
maturity and confidence in his own artistic abilities and represents a smoothly honed example of
his combined popularity and marketability. In it, he concentrates on the fine detailing of stance,
facial expression and costume so that the image resembles a contemporary fashion plate, or an
illustration from an instruction manual. The attitudes of the dancers are awkward and graceless
and their features and costume indicate that they are an approximation of assorted and
‘Everyman’ visitors to Bath. Bunbury portrays cheerful examples of mixed social classes and
captures them in the very act of revealing themselves and their true identities. The way in which
emphasis falls upon each individual in turn represents a departure from the dissipation of
attention amongst a larger group, but the comic subtext remains strong and unequivocal. The
print’s linear form is strongly reminiscent of a modern day comic strip and it also contains the
461
William Cowper to Lady Hesketh 18 January 1788 and 8 September 1787 in James King & Charles Ryskamp ed., The
Letters and Prose Writings of William Cowper, Vol. I (Oxford, 1982), 87-88.
462
Hogarth’s A Harlot’s Progress was made into a ballad opera The Jew Decoy’d or, A Harlot’s Progress by Theophilus
Cibber. See Hallett, Hogarth, 95.
463
See Riely, Horace Walpole and the ‘second Hogarth’.
221
hesitant beginnings of a form of humorous narrative. It also epresents one of the first graphic
attempts to produce a linear narrative in the comic style, in which an activity or a theme is
gradually developed. The ambitious format is then carefully tailored to accommodate the grand
scale of Bunbury’s artistic creation and it caters directly to the middle class taste for large and
decorative domestic art.465
The Propagation of a Lie (1787)
William Dickinson published Bunbury’s print The Propagation of a Lie on 29th December 1787.466
88 This reproduced the successful format of A Long Minuet as Danced at Bath and was similarly
constituted from four plates pasted together to form a continuous strip measuring six feet in
length.467 The visual impact of the assembled composition ensured that it made an impressive
sight when displayed in a print shop window, framed or pasted directly onto a wall.468 Like A
Long Minuet as Danced at Bath, the print represents an entirely new concept in graphic art and
its unfolding, linear (left to right) narrative creates a form of a visual ‘Chinese whispers’. The print
is composed of a total of eighteen figures and each individual reacts in a different way after being
told ‘a lie’, or a piece of scandalous rumour. Bunbury’s talent for social observation is reflected in
the fact that the figures are individually characterised and adopt poses suggested by the brief
verbal captions that appear above them. These labels range from the abbreviated ejaculation of
‘O La!’ to world-weary sighs and the scandalised exclamation ‘Dear me, you don’t say so!’ 469 The
absence of factual information is offset by the inclusion of fragmentary and suggestive verbal
mannerisms and while the attitudesof the figures vary, Bunbury also hints at the relationships that
might exist between paired listeners and communicators. The conversations are represented in
Bunbury’s pleasure in his work is signalled in the fact that his portrait by Thomas Lawrence (1788) and the subsequent
print by Thomas Ryder (1789) shows him working on A Long Minuet.
465
This was taken to a much more crude level in the large-scale print Lumps of Pudding, published several months after
Bunbury’s death.
466
BM 7230.
467
There is unfortunately no evidence to suggest that the constituent prints were sold individually and collected by the
purchaser into the final set.
468
See a discussion of the caricature rooms in Margaret Willes, Scenes from Georgian Life: Calke Abbey in Derbyshire
(National Trust, 2001).
469
Also ‘Heigh Ho,’ ‘O Fye,’ ‘Indeed!’ ‘There Now,’ ‘True, ‘tis pity,’ ‘As tender as possible,’ ‘Don’t mention it,’ ‘Poo Poo,’
‘God zounds, hold your tongue,’ ‘Ha ha,’ ‘O La,’ ‘Dear me, you don’t say so,’ ‘Hey ho,’ ‘O fye,’ ‘Indeed!’ ‘There now,’ ‘I
thought so,’ ‘The Devil,’ ‘No Sir,’ ‘Depend upon it,’ ‘O Lord! O Lord!’
464
222
the form of an attenuated and linear performance and a series of choreographed movements,
reminiscent of the action in A Long Minuet as Danced at Bath.
In Bunbury’s print, the combination of physical movement with the passage of intangible and
meaningless gossip symbolises both the vital and energetic nature of human society, but also its
essential shallowness. Bunbury portrays characters who communicate in the form of fragmented
platitudes in response to an intangible piece of second-hand news. Everything is hearsay and
the ‘lie’ of the title relates to the fact that verbal news is regularly translated into something
completely different by the operation of social forces upon it. In Bunbury’s image, each figure
reacts to the lie as if it were the truth and the brief hyphenated verbal responses reflect a lack of
understanding and the general dearth of social communication. The truth is established only
through endless repetition and a suspension of disbelief that recalls the story of the ‘Emperor’s
New Clothes’. Bunbury intimates that the slippery concept of ‘truth’, a opposed to ‘lies’, is based
on insubstantial and perpetually shifting social considerations. These exist only in a world in
which taste and related social boundaries are constantly re-evaluated. Society lacks the requisite
vocabulary with which to translate experience into a coherent or meaningful form and because
words alone fail to bridge the gap of understanding between self-absorbed individuals, each of
Bunbury’s characters is ultimately enclosed within a private world in which experience exists for
them alone.
David Kunzle’s has argued in his examination of Bunbury’s print in relation to the wider comic
strip genre, that no attempt is made to ‘weld the figures into a narrative chain, or to suggest that
the lie is truly being propagated from one hearer to the next’. While Bunbury’s narrative may lack
coherence, it was still received enthusiastically by his contemporaries and the editor of the
Hibernian Magazine attempts to develop the fragmentary dialogue in Bunbury’s print. He begins
with a figure who asks: ‘Did you hear that Miss Biddy Boendoen has eloped with her father’s
footman?’ and he links similarly attenuated verbal captions until this process breaks down after
the fifth figure in the chain and he is forced to return to Bunbury’s original inscriptions. Although
223
this attempt to manufacture a coherent narrative was ultimately unsuccessful, it proves that
Bunbury’s print was capable of inspiring others to engage with and seek to ‘complete’ it. While
the print lacks the requisite component parts with which to construct a fully functioning and
coherent narrative, its energy and dynamism make it a complete and almost fully self-contained
dramatic episode. Bunbury’s figures chatter rather than issue complex or personally revelatory
monologues. Their broken utterances are reminiscent of a second-hand, or overheard
conversation and this reflects the experience of a particular social class. It is not Bunbury’s
intention to tell ‘the whole story’; instead, he presents the viewer with an image of what society is
really like – frustrating, fragmentary and essentially vacuous. He gives comic visual form to the
failings of his own social class – or a generalised ‘sociable’ class - and this situates The
Propagation of A Lie in terms of a burlesque companion to A Long Minuet. The content of the
print therefore dictates the form and each reflects and reinforces the other.
Bunbury’s pared-down style of drawing has the effect of increasing the impact of the print,
irrespective of its sheer physical size. The image is designed specifically to be viewed in a
particular manner and Bunbury creates his figures to be looked at, one by one, as if a viewer was
steadily walking from left to right down the length of the assembled composition. In this way, the
size of the print both anticipates and dictates the way in which it is best viewed and appreciated.
It was usual for a print of this size to be kept in a scroll and gradually unrolled for guests to look
at, or folded for incorporation within a large caricature portfolio hired out for an evening of
entertainment. Bunbury’s image is therefore precisely constructed in order to deliver the
maximum level of visual impact and consequently the greatest viewing pleasure for the audience.
The print represents production on a premeditated grand scale and met with widespread public
acclaim; even Horace Walpole pronounced himself delighted with Bunbury’s work and wrote to
Lady Ossory accordingly: ‘The Long Minuet you may be sure I have, as I get everything I can of
Mr. Bunbury’s’.470 Other contemporaries, including William Cowper, regarded Bunbury as a
470
Walpole to Lady Ossory, 7 September 1787, Yale Walpole, XXXIII, 572.
224
subtle and consummate salesman of epic proportions, while he was also recognised as an
innovator within his chosen medium of decorative art.
The narrative strip: Bunbury and Hogarth
Despite the acknowledged novelty of his prints, Bunbury’s work was also highly derivative and he
looked back to William Hogarth’s earlier example in his attempt to create a representative and
defining artistic format. This is particularly noticeable in his ‘comic narratives’ or strip cartoon
prints, A Long Minuet as Danced at Bath and The Propagation of a Lie, produced in 1787. Both
prints reference elements of the narrative technique employed by Hogarth in his detailed
‘Progresses’ – especially The Harlot’s Progress (1731) and The Rake’s Progress (1733/4).471
Although David Kunzle has argued that Hogarth was reluctant to articulate ‘the formal innovation
of pictorial narrative in sequences’ in his work, Hogarth himself admits in his autobiographical
writings that he consciously designed images in a form of ‘series’ and that these possessed
‘something of the connection, which the pages of a book have’. By acknowledging the link that
existed between visual and verbal media, Hogarth implies that graphic art is legible and can be
‘read’ in a linear manner, from left to right, when placed in a strip or sequence. In a similar way,
Bunbury’s extended images contain the suggestion of links between characters and also between
different situations.
While it is acknowledged that art lacks the ability to illustrate more than one scene consecutively,
it is perfectly capable of suggesting concurrent activity and the impression of pre- and posthistorical context, as in a novel. Hogarth was able to hint at the back-story attached to a
character, as well as to its imagined existence beyond the limited confines of his pictures and this
is particularly marked in his extended moral ‘Progresses’, but also in his more personal
portraits.472 While Bunbury’s art falls short of Hogarth’s in this respect, his sharp observational
skills mean that he is able to create entirely believable characters and that these are captured in
See also Marriage a la Mode (1743) and Industry and Idleness (1747). See Mary Klinger Lindberg, ‘William Hogarth’s
Theatrical Writings: The interplay between Theatre, his Theories and his Art’, in Theatre Notebook: A Journal of the
History and Technique of the British Theatre, Vol. XLVII, No. 1, 1993, pp. 29-40, 29, 30. Also see Hogarth, Analysis of
Beauty.
471
225
the very act of living. Both Hogarth and Bunbury are preoccupied with filling in the gaps inside a
broadly narrative structure, in order to create a coherently expressed and fully experienced ‘story’
for the reader/viewer. Although Bunbury’s art lacks the graphic and emotional complexity and the
ultimate impact of a fully developed Hogarthian narrative, his prints remain innovatory in their
attempt to fuse and also contain comedy within a narrative structure. David Kunzle
acknowledges this groundbreaking tendency and notes that the importance of A Long Minuet lies
in the fact that it was ‘a model exercise in social caricature, creating a new range of comic types
in the new style’.473
The work of both Bunbury and Hogarth is characterised by its energy and by its restless sense of
movement. Hogarth develops this theme over the course of his career and Bunbury’s naive
drawing style and his ability to capture the basic and defining essence of a character betrays a
comparable enthusiasm and energy. The work of both artists expresses a powerful individual life
force and a genuine engagement in the observation of everyday existence. In The Analysis of
Beauty (1753), Hogarth distils all his ideas about art into the imaginative creation of a serpentine
‘line of beauty and of grace’.474 This is diametrically opposed to ‘the static, formalised values of
classicist art theory’ because, for Hogarth, art represents ‘a visual dynamism in itself’. Hogarth’s
theories about art centre on its supreme ability to convey a feeling of life and, more importantly, a
feeling of ‘motion’ and this is indirectly associated with narrative fluidity and movement. David
Kunzle has suggested that Hogarth’s creative vision is contingent upon ‘the development in time
of visual ideas’:
Hogarth created volume in compositional space, volume in his figures, volume in each
individual head. By virtue of this fact alone, his stories tend to be 3-dimensional. The
third dimension is also supplied by in-depth characterisation of the dramatis personae,
and by the continuity and development of character. [There is] a kind of waving narrative
motion which is the result of the rich by-play of incident, and which draws our attention
See especially the perceptive image of Hogarth’s own servants, Heads of Six of Hogarth’s Servants, c. 1750-1755.
David Kunzle, The Early Comic Strip: Narrative Strips and Picture Stories in the European Broadsheet from c.1450 to
1825 (London: University of California Press Ltd., 1973), 360.
474
A pallet bearing these words is included in Hogarth’s 1745 self-portrait entitled A painter and his Pug. See Uglow,
Hogarth: A Life and a World, 402.
472
473
226
from side to side, back and forth. Movement allied to complexity, is the nub of Hogarth’s
theory of grace and gracefulness.475
Hogarth identified dancing as the action that best embodied his artistic theories relating to beauty
and dynamic movement. He regarded the sophisticated and complex dance of the minuet as an
example ‘of the serpentine line of beauty,’ while he believed that simple country-dances were
useful in illustrating ‘humorous contrasts’.476 When referring to the minuet, Hogarth noted that the
‘figure of the minuet-path on the floor’ is serpentine, and that it corresponds that when minuet
dancers ‘rise and fall most smoothly in time,’ they come closest to ‘Shakespeare’s idea of the
beauty of dancing’.477 It is possible that Hogarth’s writings on the subject of dancing inspired
Bunbury to createn a comic burlesque of the graceful minuet and several of the figures included
in A Long Minuet as Danced at Bath recall Plate II of Hogarth’s Analysis of Beauty. Bunbury
therefore creates an image with a unique format and an entirely new focus. The Propagation of a
Lie is similaly characterised by the mobility of its figures and the dance-like motions that they
undertake. However, the style of the print and its idiosyncratic content belongs uniquely to
Bunbury.
Bunbury’s two prints A Long Minuet as Danced at Bath and The Propagation of a Lie were in
actual fact responsible for inspiring the short-lived popular craze for large-scale graphic art. The
first to copy Bunbury was another amateur artist, George Byron (1764-1792) and he produced a
print that was directly derivative of Bunbury’s work, entitled The Prince’s Bow (1788).478 Byron’s
image provides a ‘comic analysis of various styles of bow’ and these are performed by particular
social and national stereotypes including a clumsy Scot, an affected man of fashion, a fat bishop,
a poor curate and a selection of contemporary figures, including the politicians Edmund Burke
475
Kunzle, The Early Comic Strip: Narrative Strips and Picture Stories in the European Broadsheet from c.1450 to 1825,
338-339.
476
Such was the sincerity of his application that ‘detailed studies of the minuet and country dance figures may well have
inspired his theory that the line of beauty is serpentine’. Mary Klinger Lindberg, ‘William Hogarth’s Theatrical Writings:
The interplay between Theatre, his Theories and his Art’, in Theatre Notebook: A Journal of the History and Technique of
the British Theatre, Vol. XLVII, No. 1, 1993, pp. 29-40, 29, 30.
477
Lindberg, ‘William Hogarth’s Theatrical Writings: The interplay between Theatre, his Theories and his Art’, 34.
478
BM 7439. Also F. G. Byron, Meeting an Old Face with a New Face published by William Holland (1788) in the Lewis
Walpole collection.
227
and Henry Fox.479 It is significant that the editor of The Hibernian Magazine responded in the
same way to Byron’s print as he had to Bunbury’s. He was again inspired to create an
explanatory narrative and included a commentary that fused the figures into a communal and
social genealogy, and which stretched from the kitchen boy in the print to the King himself. The
attempt was unsuccessful because while Byron’s print is visually arresting, it is ultimately
incomplete compositionally. The professional engraver James Gillray also responded to the
fashion for elongated strip designs initiated by Bunbury and he manipulated the format in order to
communicate a complex political message. His print entitled Installation Supper was published in
June 1788 and contains a partially functioning linear narrative. 89 It is significant that the talented
artist Gillray was able to copy a form pioneered by the amateur Bunbury in order to become more
fashionable.480
The engraver Thomas Rowlandson also paid homage to Bunbury’s novel invention. As another
of Bunbury’s artistic acquaintances and a prolific translator of his prints, like Gillray, he too was
acquainted with Bunbury’s style. In 1788 he produced the large-scale print known as the School
for Scandal. This measures almost six feet in length and draws heavily upon the intuitive range
and targeting of Bunbury’s print.481 Rowlandson produced another political satire and this was
ironically entitled Propagation of a Truth as a punning version of The Propagation of a Lie and
this cleverly subverts the comic nature of Bunbury’s original design. 482 90 In the following year,
The Hibernian Magazine reproduced an anonymous political print entitled The General Election,
or a new Country-Dance (1790) and this was directly inspired by Bunbury’s A Long Minuet as
Danced at Bath. Despite their obvious energy, none of these derivative prints was able to
develop Bunbury’s ‘cut out’ figures further or provide the viewer with an inclusive and fully
functional narrative structure. This highlights the fact that the key to what David Kunzle has
479
BM 7330.
He was also personally known to Bunbury and worked on a large number of his prints. See Thomas McLean,
Illustrative Description of the Genuine Works of Mr. James Gillray (London, 1830), 388 for Bunbury’s comment that Gillray
was ‘a living folio, every page of which abounded with wit.’ See also The Works of James Gillray (London, 1851), his
transcriptions of Bunbury’s designs appear to begin with The Landing of Sir John Bull & his Family at Boulogne sur Mer
(H. Humphrey, 31st May 1792) and end with the last plate he worked on before his death, A Barber’s Shop in Assize Time
(9th January 1811).
481
Published by H. W. Wigstead on 1 August 1788. BM 7440.
482
Rowlandson’s print was published on 12 January 1789, BM 7482.
480
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disparagingly called the ‘static, frivolous Bunburian strip’ was precisely its vigour and the way in
which the viewer was encouraged to ‘fill in the blanks’ within a novel and highly suggestive
narrative format.
Conclusion
Bunbury’s ability to promote and develop a particular brand of innovatory art was honed over a
relatively short period of time. He acted as both the controlling ‘stage-manager’ of his artistic
vision and the impartial observer within his prints. From a position of varying detachment and
involvement he presented the viewer with an unthreatening image of the social world and the
ideal equestrian and model gentlemanthat existed within it. This composite figure was
characterised by its uncomplicated style, unselfconscious dignity and quiet self-possession and
Bunbury promoted it as a potentially classless and universally achievable ideal amidst the chaos
of unmediated social collision. Rather than condemning the chaotic mixture and clash of
individuals within a changing social world, Bunbury celebrated the vibrant and random existence
in which the ultimate battle was not between the classes, but between nature and urban man. He
pictured a society in which meaningful social communication was essentially problematic and in
which each individual exists in isolation. However, by utilising the universally understood
language of comedy, Bunbury was also able to establish important connections between the
classes and celebrate humanity in all its vibrant and chaotic variety.
Bunbury’s response to market forces and to the demands of his audience was finely judged and
he produced prints that were instantly fashionable and expertly adjusted to meet the demands of
a contemporary audience. The success of Bunbury’s art stemmed partially from a privileged
social position that guaranteed its acceptance by polite society. His prints were primarily directed
at members of his own social class, and he used partially concealed ‘in-jokes’ to capture their
attention and to ensure their continued patronage. Bunbury created entertaining, humorous art
that offered a safe, unchallenging view of life and this lack of any malicious or political bias also
meant that his images could ‘without embarrassment be displayed in the drawing room, made
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into decorative dados, and passed round for the entertainment of genteel company. In addition,
Bunbury’s art operated as part of an important aspirational system for the rising middle classes
who wished to use it in order to ‘buy into’ the class above them. The emulative power of both
fashion and spending was an impulse too strong for the aspiring middle class audience to resist.
In the 1780s and 1790s, it was precisely this class of individuals who purchased the popular
frieze designs of the amateurs to decorate their homes.483 Bunbury’s large-scale art represented
an elaborate form of wallpapering but it was also an important component part of the socially
accepted hierarchy of decoration. It is especially significant that the socially ambiguous nature of
Bunbury’s art and his allied ability to flit between the roles demanded of him by different
audiences held the key to the phenomenal success that he enjoyed during his lifetime.
Correspondingly, it was precisely this unthreatening and personality-driven talent for creating
universally fashionable art that accounted for Bunbury’s later plunge into obscurity. Art that is
cutting-edge dates the most quickly; and art that is dependent for its popularity on the personality
of its producer is the most swifly emptied of its emotional charge.
483
Rowlandson produced a series of border designs for Rudolph Ackermann in 1799. These included strips entitled
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CONCLUSION
In this thesis I have used a selection of the prints produced by Sir Henry William Bunbury
between 1770 and 1787 to illuminate dominant themes in the prevailing visual culture of the time.
I have investigated the relationship of Bunbury’s work with travel, fashion, the military, theatre and
sport. My analysis has shown that Bunbury was used as a spokesman for the privileged elite and
that he exploited the demand for art that amalgamated fantasy with the familiar in its creation of
the ideal Englishman. I have also shown that Bunbury intuited the fashionable taste for art that
was innovatory in its form and function and that his prints expressed a democratic and
unchallenging view of society as a decorative form of entertainment. The structure of this thesis
has provided a firm framework in which to contain a series of linked discussions relating to visual
communication allied with the broadly chronological development of Bunbury’s art. The evidence
presented in chapters one and two established the form and the defining features of Bunbury’s
art, while chapters three and four extended this discussion into a detailed examination of his
preoccupation with the act of observation, visual spectacle and theatrical role play. In the final
chapter of the thesis I provided evidence that Bunbury’s exploitation of a successful artistic
formula resulted in the creation of images that consolidated his unique vision of England and of
the Englishman.
My thesis raises important questions regarding the relationship between the producer and the
audience, the interpretation and manufacture of viewing preference, the status of popular art, the
amateur and the celebrity producer, the nature of fashion and the creation of national identity. My
examination of the way in which Bunbury configured the viewing habits of his society also
suggests the need for a critical reassessment of the historically conservative voice. Bunbury’s art
and the pattern of his success and subsequent descent into obscurity offers a model for the
contemporary appraisal of fashion and celebrity, and the manufacture of powerful reflections of
the multi-faceted Englishman. Bunbury’s images embody a characteristic and very human
‘Rustic Scenes’ that could be individually cut out or mounted as a block.
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reaction to conflict in their espousal of the ephemeral in the form of innovative fashion and visual
entertainment in place of more precise social and political engagement. Bunbury’s perception of
social uncertainty results in the creation of a nostalgic world view and a retreat into the safe, the
familiar and the visually formulaic. The conclusion of this thesis is that the relatively
uncomplicated nature of Bunbury’s images of the ‘Englishman’ belies their status as expressions
of cultural anxiety and complexity. As a spokesman for a critically neglected but socially
significant historical period, Bunbury deserves re-assessment. I also suggest that Bunbury’s
images possess a particular poignancy for twenty-first century viewers who are no longer able to
articulate a coherent sense of their visual or emotional identity as Englishmen.
The producer’s relationship with the audience
Bunbury was a member of the privileged social class that dictated the standards of social and
cultural belonging and negotiated the terms by which a particular generation was perceived.
However, Bunbury’s art represented more than a simple reflection of elite cultural values and
instead it addressed broad themes relating to visual communication and the construction of a
democratic social ideal, as well as the manufacture of an image of English national identity.
Bunbury produced work that encompassed the artistic genres of documentary realism, social
caricature and the sentimental and he also displayed a talent for innovation and the mixture of
different forms of art. As a biographical reflection of his life, Bunbury’s art was initially utilised as
a form of social entertainment but it later became a medium through which he expressed a
detailed fascination with the foreign other in the form of the French and Italian postilions, couriers
and peasants that he encountered during his travels through Europe. Bunbury’s physical and
ideological relocation from Suffolk to London also resulted in the creation of detailed images of
metropolitan cits and macaronis, fashionable pastimes and places of resort, while his experience
of Army life resulted in shrewd comic observations on the relation between the military and the
general public. The idea of different forms of ‘belonging’ was embodied in Bunbury’s celebration
of his happy domestic life in numerous sentimental portraits of women and children. Similarly, a
passion for drama and literature resulted in the manufacture of entrance tickets for the Wynnstay
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theatre, prints detailing scenes from Sheridan’s The Camp and illustrations for Thomas Macklin’s
Shakespeare Gallery. Bunbury also produced illustrations to The Arabian Nights, Sterne’s
Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey, Lewis’s The Monk, Goethe’s The Sorrows of
Werther and Gay and Goldsmith’s poems. In addition to this varied graphic work, he composed a
number of successful Prologues for plays and wrote and illustrated the popular books An
Academy for Grown Horsemen (1787), The Annals of Horsemanship (1791), Tales of the Devil
(1801) and Tales of Terror (1801), while a book entitled Familiar Letters was begun and then
abandoned in 1795.
While Bunbury’s work was less technically polished than that of his more famous contemporaries,
he possessed an intuitive feeling for character and he produced a number of particularly sensitive
sketches of women. These images provided a parallel with Gainsborough and Romney’s ‘fancy
pictures’, while his early work drew upon the theatrical and conversation pieces by Hogarth and
Zoffany (1733-1810). Bunbury’s fascination with ‘documentary realism’ had its roots in Dutch
‘low’ art and yet looked forward to the work of Francis Wheatley (1747-1801), George Morland
(1736-1804) and Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841). His art provided an accurate reflection of his own
preoccupations, while his ideological and physical proximity to other members of the ruling elite
meant that his images expressed the wider concerns of his class but also his generation. The
amalgamation of the aspirational and individually-tailored or ‘bespoke’ product with the universally
applicable image was a testimony to Bunbury’s ability to anticipate the requirements of a number
of different audiences groups simultaneously. Conversely, the range of Bunbury’s work has led
to his over-simplistic categorisation as both a ‘caricaturist’ and a non-specialist ‘amateur.’ His
prints have also been unfairly compared with those produced by professional caricature artists
who operated in a very different environment and to a very different agenda to Bunbury.
James Gillray specialised in the production of political satire and social caricature and while his
work was popular, it also provided a reflection of his own deeply-felt anti-establishment agenda.
This placed him at the opposite end of the ideological and social spectrum to Bunbury. Gillray
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capitalised on the success of a number of Bunbury’s designs and he produced a comprehensive
reworking of John Bull and his family arriving at Boulogne sur Mer (1792), among others.
However, Gillray’s interpretations of Bunbury’s uncomplicated humour were marked by his own
idiosyncratic visual and dramatic style of construction and he used the original designs as the
starting point for a much more complex image, loaded with fine detailing. In contrast, Thomas
Rowlandson produced art that was more broadly accessible than Gillray’s and he also possessed
a greater empathy with Bunbury’s work. Although Rowlandson was best known for his work in
the arena of social caricature, commercial motives also compelled him to experiment in a wide
range of different artistic genres. Like Bunbury, he created illustrations including The Comforts of
Bath (1798) and The Tours of Dr. Syntax (1799), landscapes, large-scale military panoramas
such as An English Review and A French Review and decorative frieze work, but he also
produced serious portraits and pornography. Bunbury himself was ideologically more close to
Thomas Rowlandson than to James Gillray. Although he admired both artists, he shared
Rowlandson’s eclectic visual taste and enthusiastic and creative approach to life and art. While
Rowlandson’s range of subject matter was dictated by the need to appeal to as many consumers
as possible, Bunbury’s motives were apparently more personal. He drew and recorded what
pleased, attracted or interested him, rather than what he was told to, or compelled to draw.
Although he was rewarded for his many designs, Bunbury’s social status and economic
independence meant that he did not participate directly in a relationship of creative inequality with
an audience. Although he was able to intuit his audience’s requirements, he was not under
pressure to respond either promptly or slavishly to what the public wanted.
Bunbury was more than simply a producer of theatrical or decorative, and decorous,
entertainment and as a member of the ruling elite, he unconsciously used his position of privilege
to manufacture and disseminate a form of propaganda by stealth. The images that he produced
represented the ideal Englishman in direct contrast with the social other in the form of the actor,
the man of ultra-fashion, the comical social ingénue and the Frenchman. Bunbury’s creation of
the non-judgemental, benevolent English gentleman represented a timeless ideal of essentially
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classless nobility, characterised by its confidence and quiet self-possession. The images that
reflected an ideal democracy were also defined by the elements that Bunbury either omitted or
simply hinted at in his art. While he acknowledged the existence of social hierarchy and the
chaotic nature of life, his concentration on individuals and the communal act of observation
reinforced a basic humanitarianism that was not class-specific. The focus of Bunbury’s art was
entirely character-centred and this symbolise d his passion for and involvement in life at its most
basic level. The figures of the beautiful women, the soldiers and the robust, enthusiastic middle
classes that represented the abstract entity ‘England’ are part of a much larger social totality.
Bunbury defined himself by defining others and this refreshing lack of vanity confounded the
stereotype related to his privileged position. The Englishman in Bunbury’s art was characterised
above all by his ability to communicate through the shared act of observation and the exchange
of a particular form of visual dialogue.
The status of popular art
It is significant that although Bunbury painted in oils and watercolour, he chose to express his
unconscious, personal vision of England and the Englishman through the accessible and highly
commercial medium of the graphic print. Bunbury differed from other noble amateur producers of
art in the consistency and relative volume of his artistic output. No other amateur created art at
the rate that he did, and none sought to publish and sell their work as he chose to. The impulse
to publish, and to keep publishing his images over a period of thirty years therefore smacks of
some commercial motive or campaigning zeal, the existence of enthusiastic friends, or a
combination of all three. The format in which Bunbury chose to express himself was intimately
related to his personal and celebrity status. The print enabled him to communicate in a timely
and fashionable manner with a wide audience, while it also provided him with guaranteed popular
status for as long as he kept producing art and also for as long as he lived. It is significant that
Bunbury’s artistic response to the transient and the ephemeral was contained within a medium
characterised by its essentially disposable nature. The form and the content of Bunbury’s art was
therefore inherently unstable and unsuitable for use as the basis for a lasting reputation. While
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the Revolutionary wars had temporarily united different classes in the need to consume universal
forms of propaganda, the establishment of peace was heralded as the gradual fall from power
and influence of the main supporters and promoters of Bunbury’s art. The print format was
commandeered by producers with a much more serious political agenda and this impulse was
linked with a more general reaction against art that was perceived to be either voicelessly
ephemeral or decorative, or a combination of both. This movement was ultimately responsible for
the cultural remaindering of Bunbury’s art.
The graphic format returned to its seventeenth century function and became the medium of a
predominantly ‘verbal’ form of communication, epitomised by the technically complex work of
James Gillray and George Cruikshank. The values of decorative and entertaining art were
transposed into the medium of painting as prints were utilised as a means of passing and sharing
information and as a way of expressing detailed political views and beliefs. As middle class
opinion altered and its chosen method of expression changed accordingly, this meant that
amateurs, both upper class and otherwise, were relocated from the public to the private sphere.
These individuals were perceived as artistic dabblers in watercolour or oils, and correspondingly
they were neither solicited nor encouraged to submit their views to the wider public in print form.
This new role was reserved for the waged ‘professional’ who had earned the right to stand
squarely and confidently on the political and public stage, armed with something meaningful to
communicate through his art. The unique phenomena of the eighteenth century upper class
amateur artist did not survive the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and by 1830 it was completely
dead. The characteristic self-confidence and public assurance manifested by the socially
privileged amateur artist was once again channelled into the much narrower sphere of a decorous
private life.
The status of the producer
Bunbury’s privileged status ensured the automatic intellectual and cultural sponsorship of his likeminded social counterparts. These individuals constituted a ready-made audience for whom
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Bunbury recorded a safe, shared version of the ‘real’ life that they experienced and then
processed intellectually and emotionally as a group. Bunbury became the unconscious and
unofficial spokesman for a complex form of upper class propaganda and his work was
subsequently used as a means of reinforcing a subtle yet powerful vision of Englishness. The
decorative and aesthetic qualities of Bunbury’s work meant that it appealed to a wide audience,
but the lack of a symbiotic relationship and dialogue with ‘the public’ affected its ultimate
placement. Despite the instantaneously positive reception that Bunbury’s art received during his
lifetime, and despite the uncomplicated and inclusive humanitarianism and lack of class
antagonism expressed in his work, the absence of a truly representative base of popular support
meant that Bunbury was ultimately categorised as the producer of an exclusive form of elite and
upper class art.
Both Bunbury’s reputation and his popularity during his lifetime were sustained by those who
expressed an interest in the continued maintenance of the cultural and social status quo. These
individuals were responsible for the creation and perpetuation of the powerful myth of popularity
that both defined and sustained Bunbury as an artist. The demise of those who dictated the
fashionable and aspirational terms of art therefore led ultimately to the termination of an
unthinking reverence towards both the abstract figure of Bunbury the artist and the physical
artefact of his work. One of the keys to the contemporary popularity of Bunbury’s prints was his
personality. The fictitious Bunbury was defined by his enthusiastic, sociable and ‘clubbable’
nature, and these qualities were balanced alongside his cultured membership of the
establishment elite and his sentimental enjoyment of female company and domestic happiness.
Bunbury’s personality was reflected in his art and it was also structured into his view of society.
The popularity of Bunbury’s work was based partially on the successful and intuitive marketing of
his public image as ‘Harry Bunbury - Equerry, Lieutenant Colonel, Actor and Equestrian’ and also
as a proto-celebrity associated with Royalty and the beau monde. This image was both created
and perpetuated by the combined alliance of personal friends and the arbiters of contemporary
taste and fashion. The importance of Bunbury’s work was therefore intimately bound up with the
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construction of his personal image and his social status. However, because Bunbury’s popularity
was built upon the strength of his own vital and living image, his early death deprived his art of its
immediate impact and authority. The subsequent demise of his most intimate supporters then
resulted in the final emptying of his vision’s emotional charge.
Popularity and neglect: Amateur vs. Professional
As a representative of the social elite and also as a member of the class of ‘gentleman amateurs’,
Bunbury now represents a deeply unfashionable prospect for critical examination. The terms of
Bunbury’s social and cultural belonging have become intimately associated with his supposed
lack of technical prowess and his inability either to draw or to produce a form of meaningful
‘commentary’. This negative construction of his work has crystallised in the outmoded and
inflexible nineteenth century comparison between the amateur and the professional artist. In the
twenty-first century, the status of the artistic amateur remains a lively current topic of debate and
its discussion is characterised by a strong element of reversed or social and cultural snobbery.
This is particularly true in the case of the contemporary Scottish artist, Jack Vettriano (b.1951).
Like Bunbury, Vettriano is self-taught and they share a comparable ability to outsell the ‘great
masters’. While Bunbury was the darling of the art world during his lifetime, Vettriano faces the
opposite problem. Bunbury’s privileged social status guaranteed his support by the
establishment, while Vettriano’s working class background is an underlying feature of the criticism
levelled against him by the same body. Despite his huge popularity, Vettriano’s paintings are
regarded as representative of a formulaic and ‘daub by numbers’ art that is intellectually
distasteful and somehow less valid than the work of ‘legitimate’ artists. 484
Similar criticisms were levelled at Bunbury’s art during the nineteenth century. In Vettriano’s
case, this view is directly linked to the accusation that he has ‘sold out’ and compromised his
484
Prof. Duncan Macmillan of Edinburgh University allotted Vettriano only one paragraph in his definitive history of
Scottish painting: ‘The analogy in fiction would be Jilly Cooper, Mills and Boon, or Harry Potter – should J. K. Rowling win
the Booker prize because she’s read by a lot of people? It’s interesting as a phenomenon; he’s obviously struck a popular
note, but it cannot be translated directly into enduring quality.’ David Smith, The Observer (Sunday 11 Jan 2004).
238
artistic vision in exchange for popularity and commercial success.485 It is significant that the
support of the culturally ‘un-educated’ masses has ensured that Vettriano’s images have been
transferred onto a variety of consumer objects ranging from notelets, mugs and mouse-mats to
umbrellas.486 This mirrors the way in which images from Hogarth’s A Harlot’s Progress were
pasted onto fans, tea-trays, cups and chair-backs.487 Like Bunbury, the widespread public appeal
of Vettriano’s work is drawn from a particular reading and a manipulation of an indistinct and halfarticulated form of popular nostalgia. The paintings conjure up an idyllic and hazily defined
historical era, in which gender roles are mutually unconflicting, and in which men wear suits and
women wear dresses. Just as Bunbury’s sentimental female figures, or Shakespearean heroes
are set against an indistinct pastoral backdrop, Vettriano’s too are located within an eternal
summertime in which stillness and light shimmer off the surfaces of holiday sea and sand. Unlike
Bunbury’s, much of Vettriano’s work is sliced through with a sense of darkness in which selfdoubt is mingled with an awareness of sexual and emotional insecurity and conflict. Although his
images articulate an attractively sanitised version of the untidiness of human life, and of general
experience, it is to Vettriano’s uncomplicated imagery that the public responds most strongly.
Like Bunbury’s definitive A Long Minuet, Vettriano’s iconic painting The Singing Butler has been
nationally appropriated, precisely because of its uncompromisingly decorative nature. 488 The
image is blurred, aesthetically pleasing, emotionally unchallenging and non-confrontational, but it
also possesses a strong narrative element. These characteristics are capable of seducing both
eighteenth and twenty-first century consumers who readily indulge themselves with decorative
485
This is also linked with the quintessentially English feeling of embarrassment regarding success of any kind. We feel
much more comfortable championing the under-dog rather than the high-achiever and this is extended into the modern
cult of the victim, rather than the hero. See George MacDonald Fraser, ‘The Hero and the Heroine Now and in the
Future’, speech to the National Review annual seminar, reprinted in the Daily Telegraph, 3 January 1998. In a rare
interview, Vettriano said: ‘The art world is not a lot to do with art; it’s to do with money and power and position. If they’ve
decided you fit what they like, you’ll be in; if they’ve made up their minds otherwise, you never will be. I appear to be in
the latter category. […] I have days when I don’t care less and other days when I wonder why the gulf exists. There’s a
snob association; when something’s too popular it’s regarded as a bit trashy.’ Sir Terence Conran said: ‘They turn their
backs on him because his work has been reproduced on posters, which I think is incredibly elitist and snobbish.’ David
Smith, The Observer (Sunday 11 Jan 2004).
486
‘Vettriano’s images of beaches, butlers and lovers have come to adorn everything from posters and cards to mugs and
umbrellas, but the nation’s major galleries have never displayed a single example of the real thing.’ David Smith, The
Observer (Sunday 11 Jan 2004).
487
Hogarth’s images became common currency, reproduced on everyday items like cups and saucers, fans, box lids and
items of furniture. See the discussion in Frederick Antal, Hogarth and his place in European Art (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1962), 52.
488
This image was produced by Vettriano in 1992 and was turned down as an exhibit for the Royal Academy summer
show of that year. It was sold to an anonymous buyer for the huge sum of £744,800.00 in April 2004.
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and narrative art in preference to art that is overtly ugly, complex, or lacks anything with which to
identify or to attach to familiar experience.489
Culture: Engagement and escapism
In a time of conflict - in 2008, as in 1778 - art that provides an affirmation of uncomplicated
existence becomes increasingly attractive to the cultural consumer. This form of art is
characterised by its semi-escapist nature and finds itself in direct conflict with the products of the
depersonalised media machine. In a twenty-first century post ‘9/11’ world, the viewing public has
become saturated with the endless manufacture and manipulation of images of pain, war and
death over which it has no real control. Although society continually expresses its ‘right’ to be
shown and told everything, it also reserves the allied right to switch off the television and to
relegate unpalatable news to an inaudible background hum. The media operates on the
continual compulsion to ‘fill the void’ and to provide a pre-packaged form of shocking news
balanced with entertainment and all contained within the same broadcast. The twenty-first
century visual audience has now relinquished the ability to distinguish between image and reality,
as well as the impulse to feel or to be moved by the emotional ‘punctum’ identified by Roland
Barthes in the twentieth century.490 The contemporary audience can actively choose to absent
itself from the reality of war in Afghanistan or Iraq - with the presence of the Mahdi Army in Basra,
or Taliban fighters in Helmand Province - just as the eighteenth audience was able to shut out the
reality of continued war with the mythic enemy of France and the nightmarish totem figure of
Napoleon. The generic viewer therefore consumes stories and images that reflect the morbid
curiosity encouraged and fed by the media and society in ‘whatever bleeds, leads’. However, the
viewer can actively choose to be surrounded by images that provide a reassuring and safely
sanitised version of a private, rather than a public, reality.491 Bunbury provided his audience with
Tom Hewlett, Vettriano’s dealer for the last decade has noted: ‘Art which is accessible to the masses is often regarded
as not worthy [...] There are two art worlds: the popular one which anyone can understand and the academic one
controlled by relatively few people. The latter has a very different approach and tries to be sensational for the sake of it.
People understand less an unmade bed [Tracey Emin] or a pickled pig’s head [Damien Hirst]. There are no Emperor’s
new clothes around Vettriano’s paintings.’ See BBC News online, 20 April 2004.
490
See the discussion of visual representation in Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida (London: Vintage, 1993). First
published in French as La Chambre Claire by Editions du Seuil, 1980.
491
Simon Matthews, chief executive of Easyart.com, the online shop that sells Vettriano’s images, said: ‘There is a huge
public out there that like looking at an image and relating to it […] ‘He’s a phenomenon […] His work isn’t cutting edge, it’s
489
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a form of private artistic reassurance, cleverly packaged in a decorative and entertaining format.
This type of private performance also possessed an innate form of exclusivity that was consumed
most avidly by those who were neither immediate participants nor direct invitees.
The audience reaction to and their method of processing a conflict-saturated reality is then twofold. It may be expressed in a preference for and espousal of serious and ‘political’ art or it may
fall into the opposite reaction of a retreat into an indulgent form of decorative or narrative
escapism. Both represent examples of equally valid human coping mechanisms. The retreat into
a fantasy world that is cushioned and protected from a challenging and emotionally painful reality
may be termed the human ‘default setting’. The generic consumer does not wish to purchase or
to be surrounded by objects that remind him of the flawed and unpalatable nature of his world,
however ‘fashionable’ this may be. The Englishman’s home has always been ‘his castle’ and a
refuge from reality, whether Walpole’s beloved Strawberry Hill, or a Hemel Hempstead ex-council
house with a conservatory. This is reflected in a general impulse to actively select and
accumulate objects that are aesthetically pleasing and that contribute to a sense of personal,
private and public harmony. This desire is linked with fashion and also with a perception of
individual ‘taste’. The fictional construct of this form of ‘taste’ is then communicated through TV
shows, advertisements, newspaper articles and dedicated lifestyle and home-style magazines.
The twenty-first century consumer is bombarded with hundreds of images each day that offer
advice regarding what to read, how to behave, what to wear, and how and with what to decorate
his home. The consumer attempts to adapt or replicate what he has seen and what he has been
told in a series of culturally loaded ‘lifestyle choices’. Currently, these may include the preference
for neutral colour schemes, laminate flooring, vases with an arrangement of tall sticks in them, or
a combination of all three. This process continues until what was cutting-edge becomes
‘mainstream’, migrating from the pages of the exclusive World of Interiors into the coffee-break
magazines Chat and Woman’s Own, and then to the ‘unfashionable’ remainder bins at B&Q, until
nice and comfortable and slightly saucy, a reminder of times gone by and just what the English like.’ See BBC News
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it is eventually discarded. Factors including social affiliation, age and financial accessibility
govern the length of time during which a fashion or a taste lingers and an audience will then make
an informed choice to actively refuse the maxim of ‘moving with the times’ or ‘keeping up with the
Jones’s’. After a certain age, the compulsion to be seen to be fashionable recedes and the
consumer is again free to make his own individual style statement, and to relinquish the pressure
of competition in favour of a retreat into a world in which comfort dictates choice. These choices
are also marked by an impulse to accurately define and communicate personality, state of mind
and social class, both to immediate friends and family, as well as to those existing outside those
defining relationships. Where we live, the things we wear, and the pictures on our walls –
everything defines who and what we are.
Culture: Fashion and the ephemeral
Art is also a part of this patterning and it is similarly subject to ‘taste’ and to the changing
demands of fashion. This is reflected in the market for art and antiques. For example, patterned
Victorian china was accorded a high value among the status-conscious Laura Ashley generation
of the 1980s, while sentimental ‘chocolate box’ art that includes children or animals, in the vein of
Sir John Everett Millais’ Pears Soap advertisement, continues to appeal to a broad market of
consumers.492 Chinese and Russian investors who regard art as a safe haven for their money
dominate the current market for antiques and this has encouraged a surge in the prices and
demand for works of art that reflect their cultural priorities and heritage. Similarly, high profile and
celebrity collectors like Elton John (Art Deco) and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber (Pre-Raphaelite
painting) have kept these markets relatively buoyant. Cultural fashions are cyclical and
reputations are continually subject to change and re-evaluation. Resistance to these trends is
based on accredited status and belonging to an accepted artistic canon, membership of which
must be granted ad infinitum, not just for life. Those who achieve selective reputational immunity
are those whose art articulates a safe and style-resilient sense of unchanging and steady
online, 20 April 2004.
492
Millais (1829-1896) painted his grandson Willie in 1885-6 and called the image ‘Bubbles’. The painting was later sold
by the artist who also relinquished all copyright to it. The image was subsequently used as the advertisement for the
Pears’ product, following the addition of a bar of soap. It is currently on loan to the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Liverpool.
242
‘Englishness’. This idea stretches from John Constable (1776-1837), Thomas Gainsborough
(1727-1788) and Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) in the eighteenth century to Sir Alfred
Munnings (1878-1959) in the twentieth. These artists create a powerful image of a mythic,
Arcadian England in which the upper classes are defined by their uncomplicated ownership of
and relation to their rural habitat. These images set the boundaries and dictate the terms by
which Englishness is perceived and is subsequently perpetuated as an attractive and highly
charged piece of class propaganda. Reputation does not depend on the producer, but on the
symbolic power of the detached and yet still culturally loaded product. Each generation
eventually looks back to the past as it struggles to create and come to terms with its own
experience. All art is cyclical and the fashions for art ebb and flow as what is rejected as
unfashionable returns a generation later in a subtly altered format.
The twenty-first century view
In the twenty-first century, Bunbury’s work is important primarily because it provides a reflection
of a critically sidelined artistic and historical era, but also because it embodies so many different
social and cultural impulses, without having recourse to political or personal statement. As a
perceptive viewing audience, we are now totally divorced from the eighteenth century
‘experience’ and this makes it impossible to speculate with regard to the accuracy of the picture
that Bunbury provides. However, it is certain that his art represents a sequence of views of a preRevolutionary social world that has been much neglected by critics. It is also certain that
Bunbury’s work influenced other artists and that he created images of the Englishman that
reflected not only aspects of eighteenth century culture and forms of social and visual
conditioning, but also of Bunbury himself. However, Bunbury’s artistic success and his
emotionally stable life run counter to the popular image of the tortured artistic producer, while his
decision not to draw political cartoons renders him doubly unfashionable. 493 As a representative
of the upper class, Bunbury created artefacts that mirrored the comfortable conservatism felt by
It is interesting to compare Collini’s view of Trevelyan’s emotive, upper class English narrative: ‘English history as told
by Trevelyan was rather like a tour of a beautiful country house conducted by one of the last surviving members of the
family. Taxes and modern attitudes have between them destroyed the agreeable life which used to be led within its walls
(at least above stairs), yet there it still stands, able to tug at the hearts of all but the most resistant visitors. On this
493
243
the ruling elite prior to the French Revolution. In overlooking art that expresses the status quo,
we unconsciously reject the voices of a significant minority. Not everyone is animated, or defined
by political events and conflict, as Samuel Johnson said – ‘who eats or sleeps the less’. In a
future review of the diaries of twenty-first century observers, critics will discover that the
preoccupations of everyday existence have taken priority over larger historical events and
phenomena and that we all communicate best with a small circle of trusted and like-minded
friends. Bunbury communicated with members of his own class through his art in exactly this
way, but his work also reached a wider audience because it was attractively packaged in the form
of decorative and familiar visual entertainment. Bunbury intuited the requirements of his
audience and he used his skill to repeatedly project his images into the consciousness of a
particular generation. The innate power of these images was such that they were able to retain
an element of their preliminary emotional and nostalgic charge.
Bunbury’s art represents a challenge to the way that the era in which he lived has been appraised
and why this period has been so marginalised by critical thinking. In the current cultural climate
of fame and media-obsession, Bunbury’s work also prompts a discussion regarding the
relationship between celebrity status and society and the creation of popularity based solely on
the cult of personality and reinforced by the dissemination of promotional images. This
discussion is linked to the relationship between art that is popular, or classified as entertainment,
and art that is labelled as ‘time-resistant’ precisely because it avoids the more unstable and
unpredictable nature of communal celebrity. Bunbury’s art also raises questions about the
inherent ‘value’ of producers who manufacture different forms of cultural entertainment. Although
lip-service is paid to the social worth of a truly ‘service’ vocation in preference to that of
entertainment provision, the cult of celebrity is now much more powerful than the cult of moral
worthiness. Modern twenty-first century society is guilty of valuing what it craves, rather than
what it ‘should’ value, although this function too is highly selective. 494 We falsely remember
analogy, the appeal of the English social history may in part have been that it was obviously a tale told by a toff.’ Stefan
Collini, English Pasts: Essays in History and Culture, 24.
494
The role models of young people are now highly-paid footballers and their glamorous wives, the ordinary but talented
contestants on entertainment shows and the B-list stars of reality TV programmes. In today’s celebrity-obsessed society,
244
movie-stars from the 1940s although they have ceased to exist or have any real relevance for us,
precisely because their repeated images have become iconic, with a separate and independent
life of their own. The cult of celebrity is not an exclusively twenty-first century invention and the
actor David Garrick ruthlessly marketed his own image to become the first eighteenth century
‘proto-movie star’.495 Similarly, Sir Joshua Reynolds manipulated the images of popular
actresses, courtesans and female members of the privileged upper class in a way that
suggestively promoted and also guaranteed their status as celebrities in their own right. 496
Bunbury’s art is significant because the pattern of its reception and subsequent loss (replicated in
the figure of Bunbury himself) raises questions regarding the complex way in which culture is
processed by society. This operation is best seen in the way in which members of an audience
construct an ideal and self-contained world through the act of viewing and perception itself.
Bunbury’s art embodies complex discussions regarding the nature of observation and the
subsequent marketing of visual entertainment. In turn, this is directly related to the perception of
the self, the view of abstract history and the place of the consumer within that construction.
Because Bunbury’s art neither shouts nor preaches and because it is not judgemental, it allows
the viewer valuable time in which to reflect on what it portrays. In viewing Bunbury’s art as a
personally and culturally eloquent body, the observer is struck by its coherent narrative voice.
The viewer defines himself in relation and in distinction to others in his everyday life and Bunbury
created a more representative vision of society than those artists who lacked the luxury of ‘the
Condor moment’ in which to take a step back and examine such a fictive construction at their
leisure. Despite this naïve view of life, Bunbury’s enthusiasm and optimism is refreshing and this
these individuals, for whom fame is accidental and yet actively sought, are ranged against those ‘heroes’ in low-paid,
unglamorous jobs – the doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers and soldiers.
495
For insightful discussions of David Garrick and the cult of celebrity, see Gillen Darcy Wood, The Shock of the Real:
Romanticism and Visual Culture 1760-1860 (London: Palgrave, 2001); Michael Rosenthal, ‘Public Reputation and Image
Control in Late Eighteenth Century Britain’, Visual Culture in Britain, Vol.7, Issue 2, Winter 2006, pp. 69-92; Guy Debord,
Society of Spectacle, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (New York: Zone Books, 1994); Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Every Look
Speaks: Portraits of David Garrick (London: Butler ad Tanner Ltd., 2003); Richard Brilliant ‘Images to Light the Candle of
Fame’, in Nadar, Warhol, Paris/New York: Photography and Fame, ed. By Gordon Baldwin and Judith Keller (Los
Angeles: John Paul Getty Museum, 1999); Lance Bertolsen, ‘David Garrick and English painting’, Eighteenth Century
Studies, Vol. II, No. 3, 1978, pp.308-324.
496
For further discussion of Reynolds’ role as a creator of female celebrity, see Richard Altick, Painting from Books
(Columbus: Ohio University Press, 1985); Richard Wendorff, The Elements of Life: Biography and Portrait Painting in
Stuart and Georgian England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).
245
renders his art both seductive and convincing in an unexpected way. As an audience we have
been taught that ‘the upper class’ view is somehow morally wrong and that privilege engenders
art that is venal and bears little relation to life as it is experienced by the majority. This is
manifestly not the case with Bunbury’s art.
Art that is classed as decorative or narrative or lacks a political voice need not represent a ‘guilty
pleasure’ that is fit for the consumption of the private connoisseur only. Every epoch constructs
or appropriates an artist like Bunbury or Vettriano for its own requirements. Art that represents or
delivers a form of escapism has just as much to say about a historical period and the society that
inhabits it as vigorously political or avant garde art, precisely because it provides an accessible
form of pleasure. Bunbury’s art is not entirely uncomplicated and the images he produced were
used to promote and actively celebrate the idea of the Englishman and of Englishness. This is
something that contemporary art and society at large is currently both reluctant and embarrassed
to attempt and this means that a sense of nostalgia is attached to Bunbury’s unthinking
construction of the two ideal figures of the gentleman and the soldier. In the twenty-first century,
neither of these images is fashionable and both have been turned into objects of shame, rather
than pride and celebration. Witness the shocking ‘Bread Basket’ photographs of English soldiers
forcing Iraqis to simulate sex acts in 2003, and the video of Light Infantry soldiers beating Iraqi
protesters in Al Amarah released in 2005. These images have been used by militants and
terrorist groups to reinforce the idea that the last preserve of Englishness in the form of the ideal
soldier has been fatally corrupted and that, in fact, it never existed at all. In its place there
appears the violent football hooligan, the sexual pervert and the cultural bigot draped in the flag of
St. George.497
497
Current discussions on Englishness regarding the re-emergence of the flag of St. George, in preference to the Union
Jack, have been enlightening. Interestingly, the Union Jack has always been popular with soldiers – it adorns everything
from mugs to towels and boxer shorts and is displayed on vehicles and draped across the windows of shared
accommodation – but this tradition too is changing. ‘If Britishness is a nebulous concept, Englishness is a veritable will o’
the wisp. […] While St George’s flags are more noticeable than ever, so is the disquiet – particularly among England’s
minorities – at a symbol often associated with violence or racism […] Put more simply, in response to those with a very
English terror of nationalism, recognising the richness and reality of an English identity does not mean exchanging the St.
George’s Cross for the Swastika. […] It does seem to be artists – painters, writers, composers – who give most telling
form to notions of Englishness, rather than philosophers or politicians[…] recent debate on a revival of Englishness is a
belated political recognition of a cultural reality.’ Anonymous posting on a website discussing ‘What England means to
me’.
246
Despite the association of Englishness with nationalism, pride in ourselves and in our country, as
well as the celebration of domestic happiness are not sentiments of which to feel ashamed and
these are the things that Bunbury’s art promotes most strongly. In a period in which many
certainties have been challenged by conflict or the fear of conflict, we remain in desperate need
of this inclusive and universal form of positive human propaganda. In adopting the unfashionable
conservative viewpoint lodged within an uncelebrated era, we are given the opportunity to gain
temporary membership of a society in which human ideals and the values of community and
belonging are celebrated. The consciousness of that society’s imminent destruction renders this
action even more poignant. As a twenty-first viewer the experience is akin to viewing grainy
Technicolor images of the divers on the Bridge at Mostar in Yugoslavia’s 1960s heyday as a
tourist destination, juxtaposed with its repeated slow-motion destruction by Serb forces in 1994;
or watching footage of the people of Basra kissing British soldiers following the ‘liberation’ of Iraq
in 2003, set alongside images of a burning soldier falling from his Warrior Armoured Vehicle in
flames in 2005. These multiplied images are rendered familiar by the operation of endless media
repetition, but an element of their original emotional charge remains. Like Bunbury’s emptied
images, divorced from their original producer, these images too are both humanly recognisable
and instantaneously era-defining.
In this way, the vision of the upright, upper class English soldier captured in Bunbury’s prints has
now been translated into the burning man under fire in Iraq and Afghanistan - the unassuming
Everyman hero, the rank-less Englishman. As detached observers, we have become an
audience that experiences a vicarious sense of community (as well as suffering and euphoria) as
we view violence and conflict from the relative safety of our comfortable homes. The questions
The time is now right ‘to embark on a process founded on engaging with what England might become, rather than what it
once was. Not just a St George Cross to stick out of a car window and a national dress of bri-nylon football jerseys, but
the beginnings of shaping some kind of state of independence out of these summer tournament bursts of ninety-minute
nationalism […] consider the connections between these eruptions of Englishness and a broader cultural, social and
political emergence of Broken-Up Britain […] tradition is important but so is the process in which those traditions are
identified, dusted down, or put to one side to be refashioned and reinterpreted for today and tomorrow […] it is the mix,
the impurity that is so distinctive […] Englishness remains immersed in definitions of nation and culture out of whiteness
[…] broken-up Britain must be accompanied by new images.’ See Perryman, Imagined Nation: England after Britain.
247
posed by Bunbury’s work regarding the physical and emotional act of observation and the social
art of belonging are as potent today as they were three hundred years ago. As an artist, a social
observer and an accidental historical commentator Bunbury should be viewed neither as an
amateur nor a professional. These convenient labels are both artificial and restrictive and do little
to address the cultural complexity of Bunbury’s work. It is through his ambivalent role as an
artistic observer that Bunbury is able to transcend social, historical and imaginative distance.
248
The problem of approach
The existence in the British Museum of a collection of over 10,000 prints dating from the reign of
George III (1760-1830) underlines the huge popularity of graphic art in England during this time.
Although these works have been exhaustively catalogued, their importance both as individual
artefacts and as a body of work has remained largely unexplored. 498 This scholarly neglect is due
partially to an overwhelming themic and stylistic diversity that defies simple categorisation. The
human impulse to catalogue and itemise rather than to analyse has therefore masked an
unwillingness to process the complex information contained within the English print genre.
Critical study of this area is consequently dominated by a concentration on the output of prolific
and ‘professional’ artists, whose work is informed by and comments upon the changing political
nature of the period. James Gillray (1756-1815), Isaac Cruikshank (1765-1811) and Thomas
Rowlandson (1756-1827) dominate English print production between 1785 and 1815, just as
Hogarth established the form and content of English graphic art between 1730 and 1760.
Despite the huge contemporary popularity of the prolific amateurs Robert Dighton (1752-1814)
and John Collet (1725-1780), critical analysis has consigned these artists to the role of a
supporting act for the main performance provided by Rowlandson, Gillray and those artists whose
reputations were established during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. A graphic hierarchy
therefore exists in the division of amateur from professional artists, as well as aristocratic from
middle class amateurs and this provides a reflection of prioritised and social stratification. Most
crucially, the current reading of legitimate artistic and political production does not allow room for
consideration of the vital interim period between the death of Hogarth and the ascendancy of the
late eighteenth century ‘professional’ artists.
The unique difficulties associated with the analysis of late eighteenth century graphic satire have
therefore resulted in the polarisation in methods of approach and these have corresponded
broadly with those of the historian and the art historian. In simplified terms, historians have
appropriated prints as objective and detached forms of visual evidence from which to extract a
249
distilled ‘political’ content. In contrast, art historians have adopted the opposite approach and
have categorised late eighteenth century satirical prints as a minor art form, or concentrated on a
selection of well-known individuals to the exclusion of the prolific but largely anonymous graphic
producers. These mutually exclusive methods have proved critically incapable of creating a
satisfying or integrated reading of themic preoccupation. There is consequently an overdue
requirement for an approach that is balanced between the two extremes of personality or politics.
The view of the satirical print as an isolated artefact must therefore be offset by a reinforcement
of its intrinsic value as an artefact. An acknowledgement and maintenance of its attachment to
the artist originator should accompany this. The use of a methodology characterised by a
combination of integrated detachment and involvement should also be anchored by a close
analysis of the print itself. The consequent reconstruction of a collective cultural mentality will
then contribute to the interesting and overdue current debate on the manufacture of self-image
and the formulation of an emergent, visual form of English identity.
498
‘There can be few groups of art works so comprehensively catalogued and yet so seldom discussed as the satirical
250
APPENDIX
Frances Burney’s meetings with Sir Henry William Bunbury (1787)
I whispered my inquiry to Colonel Gwynne as soon as I found an opportunity, and heard,
‘Yes, ‘tis Harry Bunbury, sure enough!’ So now we may all be caricatured at our leisure!
He is made another of the Equerries to the Duke. A man with such a turn, and with
talents so inimitable in displaying it, was a rather dangerous character to be brought
within a Court!499
At Windsor we found Colonel Gwynne, General Bude, and Mr. Bunbury, with whom I
made no further acquaintance as I was no longer Lady of the Manor. All the household
has agreed to fear him, except Mrs. Schwellenberg, who is happy that he cannot
caricature her because, she says, she has no Hump.500
The next time that I saw him after your departure from Windsor, he talked a great deal of
painting and painters, and then said, ‘The draughtsman of whom I think the most highly of
any in the world was in this room the other day, and I did not know it, and was not
introduced to him!’
I immediately assured him I never did the honours of the room when its right mistress
was in it, but that I would certainly have named them to each other had I known he
desired it.
‘Oh, yes,’ cried he, ‘of all things I wished to know him. He draws like the old masters. I
have seen fragments in the style of many of the best and first productions of the greatest
artists of former times. He could deceive the most critical judge. I wish greatly for a sight
of his works, and for the possession of one of them, to add to my collection, as I have
something from almost everybody else; and a small sketch of his I should esteem a
greater curiosity than all the rest put together’.
Moved by the justness of this praise, I fetched him the sweet little cadeaux so lately left
me by Mr. Williams’s kindness. He was very much pleased, and perhaps thought I might
bestow them. Oh no! – not one stroke of that pencil could I relinquish! 501
This is not, however, his only subject. Love and romance are equally dear to his
discourse, though they cannot be introduced with equal frequency. Upon these topics he
loses himself wholly – he runs into rhapsodies that discredit him at once as a father, a
husband and a moral man. He asserts that love is the first principle of life, and should
take place of every other; holds all bonds and obligations as nugatory that would claim a
preference; and advances such doctrines of exalted sensations in the tender passion as
made me tremble when I heard them.
He adores Werther, and would scarce believe I had not read it – still less that I had begun
it and left it off, from distaste at its evident tendency. I saw myself sink instantly in his
estimation, though till this little avowal I had appeared to stand in it very honourably. 502
prints of eighteenth century England.’ Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III, 15.
499
Barrett, The Diary and Letters of Madame D’Arblay, II, 395. Sunday 1st July 1787.
500
Barrett, II, 404. Thursday 23rd July 1787.
501
Barrett, II, 411-412. Tuesday 21st July 1787.
251
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PRIMARY SOURCES
Prints by Sir Henry William Bunbury, published between 1770-1811, 1811-1825
1766
Boy Riding on a Pig, Bunbury (dry-point).
Mastigeus, Bunbury (BM 4921) (etching on card).503
c.1769-70
Eques Cantab, Bunbury (BM 4724).
Paysan Des Alpes, Bunbury (etching and dry-point), no publication details.
A French Postilion with a whip in one Hand, the other in Pocket, Birds, Horses and a Barn
Behind, Bunbury (etching and dry-point) (BM 4743).
A French Postilion walking away, whip in hand, Bunbury (etching and dry-point), no
publication details (BM 4744).
A French Postilion looking over his shoulder, whip in hand, Bunbury (etching and dry-point
(BM 4745).
A French Postilion Gesturing, Bunbury (etching and dry-point), no publication details (BM
4746).
La Vengeance, Bunbury (dry-point).
A French Postilion looking over his shoulder, whip in hand, with a distant church, Bunbury
(etching and dry-point) (BM 4765).
Paysanne de la France, Bunbury (etching and dry-point), no publication details (BM 4751).
Que je suis enchante de vous voir! Bunbury (etching and dry-point (BM 4754).
Happy Peasant and Monk, Bunbury (etching and dry-point) no publication details.
502
Barrett, II, 411-412. Tuesday 21st July 1787.
Lettered in Greek, this is one of Bunbury’s first attempts at etching. It is probable that it depicts Dr. Samuel Smith, a
master at Westminster School during Bunbury’s time there.
503
252
1770
Le Cabriolet, Matthew Darly, 4 February 1770 (hand coloured etching) (BM 4633).
French Peasant, Matthew Darly, 1 April 1770, published by Matthew Darly, 39 Strand, (BM
4677). Labelled No. 8.
c. 1770-1772
Oliver Goldsmith, Bunbury (dry-point etching).
1771
The Lemonade Seller, ‘T/J. Scratchley’ as Matthew Darly, 8 January 1771, (hand
coloured/etching) (BM 4782).
La Cuisine de la Poste, Matthew Darly, 1 February 1771, published by Matthew Darly, 39 Strand
(BM 4918).
The Kitchen of a French Post House, 1 February 1771, published by John Harris, Sweetings
Alley, Cornhill (BM 4764).
A Peasant of the Alpes, Matthew Darly, 2 April 1771, published by Mathew Darly, 39 Strand
(BM 4675) (also hand coloured etching, BM 4764).
Le Cabriolet, Matthew Darly, reissue, 17 March 1771, (BM 4633). 504
The Dog Barber, Matthew Darly, 25 April 1771, copy of original dry-point etching by Bunbury
published by Matthew Darly, 39 Strand (BM 4668).
The Happy Peasant, Matthew Darly, 2 August 1771, copy of original dry-point etching by
Bunbury published by Matthew Darly, 39 Strand.
View on the Pont Neuf at Paris, Matthew Darly, 1 October 1771, published by Matthew Darly,
39 Strand, Where may be had all the Works of Mr. Bunbury (BM 4918).
View on the Pont Neuf at Paris, Matthew Darly, 1 October 1771, 2nd state reissue, John Harris,
Sweetings Alley, Cornhill (4763).
‘Barbares Anglois! Qui du meme Couteau Coupoient le tete aux Roi et les queues aux cheveaux, Mais les Francois
polis laissent aux Rois leurs tetes, Et encore comme vous voyez les Queues a leur Betes!’.
504
253
The Judgement of Paris, Bunbury original, 1 October 1771, published by Matthew Darly, 39
Strand (BM 4920).505
1772
A Village Barber L. M. L’Inghiltera, James Bretherton, 1 March 1772, published by James
Bretherton, 134 New Bond Street (BM 4757).
The Sailor’s Return from Portsmouth, Charles Bretherton junior, 2 March 1772, published by
James Bretherton, 134 New Bond Street (BM 5087).
John Jehu, L’Inghilltera, James Bretherton, 6 March 1772, published by James Bretherton, 134
New Bond Street (BM 4738).
Monsieur le Fuet. La Francia, James Bretherton, 6 March 1772, published by James
Bretherton, 134 New Bond Street (BM 4753)
The Delights of Islington, Charles Bretherton junior, 30 April 1772, published by James
Bretherton, 134 New Bond Street (BM 4722). 506
Postiglione Germanico, Charles Bretherton junior, April 1772, published by James Bretherton,
No. 134 New Bond Street (BM 4740). Series BM 4735-1751.
Postiglione Inglese, Charles Bretherton junior, April 1772, published by James Bretherton, No.
134 New Bond Street (BM 4739).
Contadina Della Savoya, 30 April 1772.
The Shaver and the Shavee, Charles Bretherton junior, April 1772, published by James
Bretherton, No. 134 New Bond Street (BM 4756).
A View of the Place des Victories at Paris, ‘T. Scratchley’ as Matthew Darly, 1 May 1772,
published by Matthew Darly, 39 Strand (BM 4919).
Eques Cantab, James Bretherton, reissue of 1769 original, 2 May 1772, published by James
Bretherton, No. 134 New Bond Street (BM 4723).
This is believed to be the original Bunbury design. ‘Jun[o]: But to bestow it on that Trapes it mads me – Min[erva]:
Hang him Jackanapes’.
506
‘WHEREAS my new Pagaoda has been clandestinely carried off & a new pair of DOLPHINS taken from the top of the
GAZEBO by some blood-thirsty villains & whereas a great deal of TIMBER has been cut down and carried away from the
old GROVE That was planted last spring and PLUTO and PROSERPINE thrown into my BASON from hence the SteelTraps and Spring Guns will be constantly set for the better extirpation of such a nest of Villains by me JEREMIAH SAGO’.
505
254
Cantab, James Bretherton, 2 May 1772, published by James Bretherton, No. 134 New Bond
Street (BM 4725).
The Sleeping Macaroni, Dreaming for the Good of his Country, Matthew Darly, 4 June 1772,
published by Matthew Darly, 39 Strand (BM 4648). 507
Strephon and Chloe, James Bretherton, 28 November 1772, published by James Bretherton,
No. 134 New Bond Street (BM 4755).
I will pay no more debts of her contracting, James Bretherton, 7 December 1772, published
by James Bretherton, New Bond Street.
A Sunday Evening, James Bretherton, 7 December 1772, published by James Bretherton, 134
New Bond Street. (BM 5084).
The St James’s Macaroni, James Bretherton, 29 March 1772, published by James Bretherton,
134 New Bond Street (BM 4712)
The Fish-Street Macaroni, James Bretherton, 29 March 1772, published by James Bretherton,
134 New Bond Street (BM 4713).
The Full-Blown Macaroni, James Bretherton, 29 March 1772, published by James Bretherton,
134 New Bond Street (BM 4714).
The Houndsditch Macaroni, James Bretherton, 20 December 1772, published by James
Bretherton, 134 New Bond Street (BM 4715).
The Judgement of Paris, Gabriel Smith, 4 July 1772, published by Mary Darly, 39 the Strand
(BM 4752).508
The Morning News, James Bretherton, 10 December 1772, published by James Bretherton, 134
New Bond Street (hand coloured/etching) (BM 5086). ?
Courier Francois, ‘T. Scratchley’ as Matthew Darly, 1772, printed for Robert Sayer, Fleet Street
(BM 5056).
1773
From Darly’s ‘Macaronies, Characters and Caricatures and designed by the greatest personages, artists and c. graved
and published by M. Darly, Volume 3’.
508
‘H. B. inventit 1766’. Copy in reverse of BM 4920, August 1771.
507
255
A Militia Meeting, James Bretherton, 2 January 1773, published by James Bretherton, 134 New
Bond Street (BM 4759).
Captain Bun Quixote attacking the Oven, 4 January 1773, published by Matthew Darly, 39
Strand (BM 4665).
The Siege of Namur by Capt Shandy and Cpl Trim, James Bretherton, 30 January 1773,
published by James Bretherton, No. 134 New Bond Street (BM 5213). Tristram Shandy
illustration.
The Damnation of Obadiah, James Bretherton, 30 January 1773, published by James
Bretherton, No. 134 New Bond Street (BM 5214). Tristram Shandy illustration.
The Overthrow of Dr. Slop, James Bretherton, 3 February 1773, published by James
Bretherton, No. 134 New Bond Street (BM 5215). Tristram Shandy illustration.
The Battle of the Cataplasm, James Bretherton, 3 February 1773, published by James
Bretherton, No. 134 New Bond Street (BM 5216). Tristram Shandy illustration.
The Salutation Tavern, James Bretherton, 20 Mar 1773, published by James Bretherton, No.
134 New Bond Street (BM 4716).509
The Christmas Academics – A Combination Game at Whist, James Bretherton, 20 January
1773, published by James Bretherton, No. 134 New Bond Street.
Petite Fille de France, James Bretherton, 2 Feb 1773 (BM 4728).
Contadin Degli Stati di Parma e Modena, James Bretherton, 3 February 1773, published by
James Bretherton, No. 134 New Bond Street.
Jollux, James Bretherton, 6 February 1773, published by I. Bretherton (BM 4726). 510
Concerto Spirituale, James Bretherton, 23 March 1773, published by James Bretherton, No.
134 New Bond Street (BM 5217).
The Inimitable Mr. Moss, James Bretherton, 15 May 1773, published by James Bretherton, No.
134 New Bond Street (BM 4721).511
‘Macaroni and other soups hot every day’.
Bunbury delin. 1772.
511
‘To all Encouragers of Arts and Sciences, This portrait of the INIMITABLE MR JAMES MOSS is with great respect
dedicated by his and their obedient humble servant HWB’.
509
510
256
The Slumbers of Ragotin interrupted, James Bretherton, 29 May 1773, published by James
Bretherton, 134 New Bond Street (BM 5218). 512
Snip Francois, James Bretherton, 20 December 1773, published by James Bretherton,
No. 134 New Bond Street (BM 4749).
Snip Anglois, James Bretherton, 20 December 1773, published by James Bretherton,
No. 134 New Bond Street (BM 4748).
Portrait of a Man in a Coat and Hat with a Walking Stick, James Bretherton, 23
December 1773, published by James Bretherton, 134 New Bond Street (BM 4762).
Bergere de la Bourgogne, James Bretherton, 1773, published by James Bretherton, 134 New
Bond Street.
Fille des Appennins, James Bretherton, 1773, published by James Bretherton, 134 New Bond
Street.
Paysanne de la Bourgogne, James Bretherton, 1773 published by James Bretherton,
134 New Bond Street.
1774
French Postilion, James Bretherton, 2 January 1774, published by James Bretherton,
134 New Bond Street.
The Hopes of the Family – An Admission to the University, James Bretherton, 3 January
1774, published by James Bretherton, 134 New Bond Street (BM 4727).
A Mutual Accusation, James Bretherton, 3 January 1774, published by James Bretherton, 134
New Bond Street (BM 5279).513
An Italian Venturino, James Bretherton, 10 January 1774, published by James Bretherton, 134
New Bond Street.
An English Postilion, James Bretherton, 10 January 1774, published by James Bretherton, 134
New Bond Street, (etching and dry-point) (BM 4747).
Illustration to Scarron’s Roman Comique (1651), Book II, chapter xx.
‘When once you’re told and can’t recall a Lye Boldly, persist in’t or your Fame will die. Learn this ye wives, with
unrelenting Claws, or right or wrong, Assert your husband’s cause’.
512
513
257
Damn Bucephalus! James Bretherton, 10 January 1774, published by James Bretherton, 134
New Bond Street, (BM 4730).
A French Postilion, James Bretherton, 20 January 1774, published by James Bretherton, 134
New Bond Street, (BM 4741).
A Dancing Bear, James Bretherton, 1 April 1774, published by James Bretherton, 134 New
Bond Street (etching and dry-point).
Courier Anglois, James Bretherton, 3 May 1774, published by James Bretherton, 134 New Bond
Street, (soft ground etching) (BM 4736).
Courier Francois, James Bretherton, 3 May 1774, published by James Bretherton, 134 New
Bond Street (soft ground etching) (BM 4737).
Price Six Pence, James Bretherton, 3 May 1774, published by James Bretherton, 134 New Bond
Street (etching and dry-point) reverse of 4737 (BM 4737A).
Every Sous Begad, James Bretherton, 10 June 1774, published by James Bretherton, 134 New
Bond Street (BM 4720)
1777
Newmarket: A Shot at a Hawk, James Bretherton, 1 March 1777, published by James
Bretherton (BM 4717).
Newmarket: A Shot at a Pigeon, James Bretherton, 1 March 1777, published by James
Bretherton.
The Pot Fair, Cambridge, James Bretherton, 25 June 1777, published by James Bretherton (BM
5923).
(Also etched by Rowlandson, c.1777-1790)
Memorandum of Particulars which occurred in a Little Tour taken by Mr. & Mrs. Cookes,
Sir James & Lady Lake, Miss Milner & Mr. Winter, who set out from Dover Tuesday July 22
1777 (J. Lake, published 1777) Caption to 1st illustration reads ‘The figures were taken from Mr.
Collett’s drawings and some of Bunbury’s etchings, by Sir James W Lake. (returned Monday 6
August 1777).
258
1778
A Tour to Foreign Parts, James Bretherton, 11 March 1778, published by James Bretherton
(BM 4732). Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1777.
1779
Coxheath Ho! [Sir Horatio Mann returning from Linton to Barham Court], James Bretherton, 3
July 1779. Lewis Walpole.
Warley Ho! James Bretherton, 3 July 1779.
A Visit to the Camp, Watson and Dickinson, 1 December 1779, published by Watson &
Dickinson, No. 158 New Bond Street (stipple).
Damn Mambrino, James Bretherton, c.1779 (etching and dry-point) (BM 4731).514
1780
Recruits, James Dickinson, 1 January 1780, published by Watson & Dickinson, No. 158 New
Bond Street – lettered No. 2 of series.515 [Camp Toilet and A visit to the Camp exhibited at RA].
Nancy, Thomas Watson, 11 (22) January 1780, Watson & Dickinson, No. 158 New Bond Street
(stipple). Series.516
A Riding House, James Bretherton, 15 February 1780, published by James Bretherton, (also
hand coloured etching) (BM 5802).
A Game at Chess, James Bretherton, 1 March 1780, Published by James Bretherton, New
Bond Street. LW
Three French Girls before a Castle Gate, James Bretherton, 4 March 1780, published by
James Bretherton, New Bond Street (hand coloured etching).
Billiards, Watson and Dickinson, 15 November 1780, published by Watson and Dickinson, No.
158 New Bond Street (stipple) (BM 5803).
A later version of Damn Bucephalus (1774). The prints’ titles refer to successful race-horses.
Later etched by Thomas Rowlandson, 1803, reissued in 1811.
516
Series includes A Visit to the Camp, The Recruits and Nancy.
514
515
259
A Windy Day in Hyde Park (BM 5925) [exhibited at RA 1780].
A College Gate, Divines going on Duty, Thomas Watson, 15 November 1780, reissue 1774
original, published by Watson and Dickinson, No. 158 New Bond Street (stipple) (BM 5804).
c.1780-1800
Dr Cassock FRS TPQ Inventor of the Noble Puzzle for Horses, William Dickinson (illustration
from The Annals of Horsemanship).
Untitled print – woman leaning against a chair back – William Dickinson (stipple and etching).
The Compliments of the Season, anonymous, 1780 (stipple and etching) (BM 5806).
1781
Billiards, James Bretherton, 27 January 1781, published by James Bretherton (BM 5913).
A City Hunt, James Bretherton, 8 February 1781, published by James Bretherton, New Bond
Street.517
Hyde Park, James Bretherton, 8 February 1781, published by James Bretherton, New Bond
Street (BM 5925-5927).518
Blouzelind, James Bretherton, 1 March 1781, published by James Bretherton, New Bond Street
(oval, hand coloured etching). Pair with Susan.519
Susan, James Bretherton, 1 March 1781, published by James Bretherton, New Bond Street
(hand coloured etching).520
Conversazione, William Dickinson, 1 April 1781, published by J. Harris, Sweetings Alley, Cornhill
Lewis (BM 6141).
The Honourable Charles James Fox, Joshua Kirby Baldrey,12 April 1781, published by Joshua
Kirby Baldrey, No. 37 Green Street Grosvenor Square, Edward Hedges, No. 92 Cornhill (stipple
in oval) (BM 5878).
517
Print measures 27 3/8 x 68 ½ inches framed, dedicated to George, Prince Of Wales.
Print measures 28 ½ x 63 ½ inches framed.
519
‘The peerless Maid that did all Maids Excel’. Associated with Gay’s ‘Sweet William’s Farewell to Back-Eyed Susan’..
520
Blouzelind and Susan as a pair. Susan published as Black-Eyed Susan 1 November 1792 by William Dickinson.
518
260
Hints to Bad Horsemen, A Set 1 to 4, Watson and Dickinson, 10 May 1781, including Symptoms
of Restiveness, Starting, Kicking, Tumbling, published by Watson & Dickinson.
Symptoms of Restiveness, 10 May 1781, Watson and Dickinson, No. 158 New Bond Street
(BM 5914). No. 6.
Symptoms of Starting, 10 May 1781, Watson and Dickinson, No. 158 New Bond Street (BM
5915). No. 7.
Symptoms of Kicking, 10 May 1781, Watson and Dickinson, No. 158 New Bond Street (BM
5916). No. 8.
Symptoms of Tumbling, 10 May 1781, Watson and Dickinson, No. 158 New Bond Street (BM
5917). No. 9.
Marian, Joshua Kirby Baldrey, 20 May 1781, published by I. Baldrey, No. 37 Green Street,
Grosvenor Square and Sold by E. Hedges, No. 92 Cornhill (stipple). Pair with Marian.521
Cicely, Joshua Kirby Baldrey, 20 May 1781, published by I. Baldrey, No. 37 Green Street,
Grosvenor Square and Sold by E. Hedges, No. 92 Cornhill (stipple).
The Departure of La Fleur from Montreuil, Watson and Dickinson, 28 May 1781, published by
Watson & Dickinson, 158 New Bond Street (stipple).
Derby Diligence, or, Lord Derby following Miss Farren, John Raphael Smith, 20 July 1781,
published by John Raphael Smith, No. 83 Oxford Street, nearly opposite the Pantheon (hand
coloured etching and aquatint) (BM 5901).
A Family Piece, William Dickinson, 15 October 1781, published by William Dickinson, No. 158
New Bond Street (BM 5921). No. 10.
The Coffee-House Patriots, or News from Eustacia, William Dickinson, 15 October 1781,
published by William Dickinson, 158 New Bond Street, (BM 5923).
Morning, or the Man of Taste, John Raphael Smith, 10 October 1781, published by John
Raphael Smith, No. 83 opposite the Pantheon, Oxford Street (stipple) (BM5919).
A Chop House, William Dickinson, 15 October 1781, published by William Dickinson, Engraver,
No. 158 New Bond Street (stipple) (BM 5922)
521
Character after John Gay ’The Parson’s Maid and neatest of the Plain’.
261
Evening, or the Man of Feeling, John Raphael Smith, 19 October 1781, published by John
Raphael Smith, No. 83, opposite the Pantheon, Oxford Street (stipple) (BM 5920).
The Relief, William Dickinson, 21 October 1781 published by William Dickinson, Engraver, No.
158 New Bond Street (stipple) (BM 5924) No. 13.
Peasants in the Vale, Joshua Kirby Baldrey, 1 November 1781, sold by J. Wilkinson at Cornhill.
Corporeal Fear, R. Wilkinson, 1 November 1781, published by R. Wilkinson, No. 58 Cornhill
(stipple) (BM 5918).
1782
Fought All His Battles O’er Again and Thrice He Slew The Slain, James Bretherton,
1 January 1782, published by James Bretherton (BM6139).
A Modern Spread Eagle, James Bretherton, 3 January 1782 (BM 6140).522
Warley Ho! James Bretherton, 23 Jan 1782, reissue from 1779, published by James
Bretherton.523
Conversazione, William Dickinson, 11 February 1782, published by William Dickinson,
Engraver and Print seller, No. 158 New Bond Street (stipple) (BM 6141) No.14.
An Englishman at Paris, 1767, James Bretherton, 23 Feb 1782, published by James
Bretherton.
Dr. Dawdle in a Hurry, James Bretherton, 1 March 1782 (proof etching with brown
wash) (BM 6142).524
Richmond Hill, William Dickinson, 1 March 1782, published by William Dickinson,
Engraver and Print seller, No. 158 New Bond Street (BM 6143) (stipple etching).
Exhibited at the Royal Academy, no. 536.
The Country Maid, John Raphael Smith, 20 March 1782, published by John Raphael
Smith, No. 83, opposite the Pantheon, Oxford Street (stipple and etching).
Charlotte, C. W hite, 21 March 1782, published by C. White, Kemp’s Row, Chelsea (stipple).
522
2d proof, on verso in pen.
Dated 1779.
524
Restrike of 1782 plate published 1 July 1801 by S. W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly.
523
262
A Bore, Claude Loraine Smith, 6 April 1782, published by Charles Bretherton (BM
6147).
The Dance, Francesco Bartolozzi, 10 April 1782, William Dickinson, Engraver and Print seller,
No. 158 New Bond Street (hand coloured etching and stipple). 525
A Hail Storm, John Raphael Smith, 19 April 1782, published by John Raphael Smith, No. 83,
opposite the Pantheon, Oxford Street (BM 6145).
A Long Story John Raphael Smith, 25 April 1782, published by John Raphael Smith, No. 83,
opposite the Pantheon, Oxford Street (hand coloured stipple and etching) (BM 6144).
The Song, Francesco Bartolozzi, 10 July 1782, published by William Dickinson, Engraver and
Print seller, No. 158 New Bond Street (hand coloured etching and stipple). A pair with The
Dance.526
Sir Gregory Gigg, John Raphael Smith, 23 July 1782, published by John Raphael Smith, No. 83,
opposite the Pantheon, Oxford Street (BM 6146).
The Sad Story, John Raphael Smith, 29 July 1782, published by John Raphael Smith, No. 83
Oxford Street (stipple).527
Friar Philip’s Geese, Thomas Watson, 3 October 1782, published by Thomas Watson, 33 The
Strand (oval, stipple).528
The First Interview of Werther and Charlotte, John Raphael Smith, 16 October 1782,
published by John Raphael Smith, No. 83, opposite the Pantheon, Oxford Street (etching and
stipple, square and oval).529
Adelaide entering in disguise the Abbey of la Trappe, hears her lover’s voice in the choir,
William Dickinson, 20 October 1782, published by William Dickinson, Engraver and Print seller,
No. 158 New Bond Street (stipple and aquatint).530
525
Dedicated to the Duchess of Devonshire by the publisher.
Dedicated to the Duchess of Devonshire by the publisher.
527
‘By Angels caught, all hallow’d as they flow, are tears we shed for sorrows not our own; And bosoms heaving for
another’s woe, waft their own incense to the heavenly throne’. E. W.
528
A Tale from La Fontaine. ‘Oh the sweet bird, cries the lad in the utmost transport of joy, prithee sing a little; let us have
some of thy music; could not I get a little acquainted with thee? Dear Father, I intreat you if you love me, to let us carry
one of them into our forest, I myself will take care to feed it’.
529
‘Charms, that the bliss of Eden might restore, That heaven might envy, & mankind adore: I saw and Oh what heart
could long rebel, I saw – I loved – and bade the world farewell’.
530
‘ Thoughts of past joys before the altar rise, Stain all my Soul and wanton in my eyes! I wake the matin lamp in sighs
for thee, Thy image steals between my God and me. Eloisa’.
526
263
1783
Moses, 23 January 1783, James Bretherton (BM 6339).
Symptoms of Rearing, James Bretherton, 23 January 1783, published by James Bretherton
(BM 6340).
Affliction, William Dickinson, 21 February, published by William Dickinson, Engraver and Print
seller, No. 158 New Bond Street (hand coloured, stipple and aquatint). 531
All Fours, John Raphael Smith, 14/17 March 1783, published by John Raphael Smith, No. 83
Oxford Street (oval, hand coloured etching) (BM 6341).532
The Inflexible Porter, John Raphael Smith, 24 March 1783, published by John Raphael Smith,
No. 83 Oxford Street, and S. W. Fores, 41 Piccadilly (stipple) (BM 6343/A).
Front, Side View and Back Front of a Modern Fine Gentleman, John Raphael Smith, 24
March 1783, published by John Raphael Smith, No. 83 opposite the Pantheon, Oxford Street (BM
6342).533
Patty, C. White, 28 March 1783, published by C. White, Kemp’s Row, Chelsea (stipple, in
brown).534
Peasants in the Vale of Llangollen, Joshua Kirby Baldrey, 2 November 1783, published by
William Dickinson, Engraver & Print seller, No. 158 New Bond Street (etching and stipple).
Peasants of the Vale of Llangollen, Joshua Kirby Baldrey, 25 November 1783, published by
William Dickinson, Engraver & Print seller, No. 158 New Bond Street (etching and stipple).
‘Cold on Canadian Hills or Minden Plain! Perhaps ye parent wept, her soldier slain, Bent o’er her Babe her Eyes
dissolved in dew, The big drops mingling with the milk he drew, Sad mournful presage of his future years; The Child of
Misery, baptised in Tears’. Langthorne.
The Donor of the print has writes: ‘This wretched work of art, is notwithstanding, the historic link that binds the name of
Robert Burns with Walter Scott. The circumstances thereto appertaining will be fully narrated in Volume 1 st of R.
Chambers ‘Life and Works of Robert Burns’. I know but of 3 impressions off this plate, one is in the DF Gallery at
Swansea; the other I gave to the City of Edinburgh and this I now give to the BM. Feb 1891 J. Deffett Francis’.
532
The style of this print, especially its outlining of the figures, is strongly reminiscent of Thomas Rowlandson.
533
This character appears in The Inflexible Porter and is associated with Lt. Col. William Neville Gardiner (1748-1806), an
Army Officer and diplomat to Poland and Ireland. See also Cruikshank’s more lewd take on Bunbury’s print in A BackSide and Front View of a Modern Fine Lady, Vide Bunbury, or the Swimming Venus of Ramsgate, c. October 1803,
published by S. W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly.
534
‘The patten now supports each frugal Dame, which from the Blue-ey’d Patty takes the Name. Gay’. First state before
plate reduced to an oval.
531
264
St James’s Park, James Wallis, 30 November 1783, published by J. Wallis, No. 16 Ludgate
Street and E. Hedges, No. 92 under the Royal Exchange, Cornhill, price 2s 6d plain (etching and
engraving) (BM 6344).
1784
Expectation, John Raphael Smith, 1 January 1784, published by John Raphael Smith, 83 Oxford
Street (stipple etching).535
The Deserter, William Dickinson, 1 March 1784, William Dickinson, Engraver and Print seller,
No. 158 New Bond Street (stipple and etching).
A Camp Scene, Charles Knight, 25 June 1784, published by Charles Knight, Stafford Row,
Pimlico (stipple) (BM 6727).
The Parting of Hotspur and Lady Percy, or, Harry and Emma, William Dickinson, 26 June
1784, published by William Dickinson, Engraver and Print seller, No. 158 New Bond Street
(stipple and etching).536
Fille de Mont Melian, Charles Knight, 10 July 1784.
Paysanne de la Maurianne, William Dickinson, 10 July 1784.
A Farrier’s Shed, William Dickinson, 1 October 1784 (stipple) (BM 6726).
1785
The Origins of the Gout, John Jones, 20 April 1785, published by J. Jones, No. 63 Great
Portland Street, Marylebone (BM 6881).537
The Gardens of Carleton House, William Dickinson, 10 May 1785, published by William
Dickinson, No. 158 New Bond Street and William Austin, Drawing Master, St. James’s Street
(stipple and etching).538
A Barber’s Shop in Assize time, John Jones, 12 May 1785, published by J. Jones, Great
Portland Street and W. Dickinson, No. 158 New Bond Street (BM 6882). 539
‘To bosoms heaving and to eyes that weep/While loves linger in a distant clime/Fear multiplies the dangers of the
deep/and expectation loads the wing of time’. E. W.
536
Dedicated to Lady Watkin Williams Wynn.
537
See the discussion of Gillray’s reworking of the ideas in this print.
535
265
From a Sketch Taken at Portsmouth, John Raphael Smith, 24 June 1785, published by John
Raphael Smith, No. 83 Oxford Street (stipple and etching).
City Foulers – Mark! John Jones, 1 September 1785, No. 63 Great Portland Street, Marylebone
(stipple) (BM 6883).
A Dancing Bear, Charles Knight, 25 June 1785, published by William Dickinson, Engraver and
Print seller, No. 158 New Bond Street and J. Jones, No. 63 Great Portland Street (stipple and
etching).
A Band of Savoyards, Charles Knight, 20 September 1785, published by William Dickinson,
Engraver and Print seller, No. 158 New Bond Street (stipple and etching).
The Sultan of Casgar’s Purveyor takes the Corpse of Little Hunch Back (which is let down
his Chimney) for A Robber, J. Jones, 24 December 1785, published by J. Jones, No. 63 Great
Portland Street (stipple and etching).
1786
A Tale of Love, John Keyse Sherwin, 3 March 1786, published by James Bretherton, New Bond
Street (stipple and etching).
Love and Hope, Charles Knight, 1 December 1786, published by William Dickinson, Engraver
and Print seller, 158 New Bond Street (stipple).540
Love and Jealousy, Charles Knight, 1 December 1786, published by William Dickinson,
Engraver and Print seller, No. 158 New Bond Street (stipple and etching).
The Genii takes Bedridden Hassen from the Bed of the Beautiful Lady and Lays Him at the
Gates of Damascus, John Pettit, 23 December 1786, published by John Jones, 63 Great
Portland Street, Marylebone (stipple and etching).541
c. 1785-1786
538
Dedicated to the Prince of Wales, the owner of the original drawing.
Dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds as the owner of the original drawing.
540
‘With thee my Love to pass my tranquil days, How would I slight Ambitious painfull praise, By Beauty held in strong but
gentle chains, Far from tumultuous War and dusty plains. Lytellton’.
541
Dedicated to the Countess of Sutherland, the owner of the original drawing.
539
266
Admission Ticket for Wynnstay Theatre, bust of Shakespeare, etching printed on card,
reproduced in The European Magazine, Ix 71 (undated, no engraver or other details).
Admission Ticket for Wynnstay Theatre, Punch and Judy, etching in red on card, reproduced
in The European Magazine, Ix 71 (undated, no engraver or other details, but possibly by Bunbury
himself) (BM 7068).
Three Tickets of Admission to Wynnstay Theatre, John Evans, Bunbury, John Sewell, 1
February 1786, published by John Sewell, Cornhill (etching).
Wynnstay Theatre ticket 1785, dated 1786, William Walker after Francesco Bartolozzi,
published by John Sewell, Cornhill (etching and engraving).
Wynnstay Theatre, 1786/1781 (etching/preliminary design) (BM 7069A).
1787
The Little Hunchback dining with the Taylor is choak’d with a Fish Bone, Simon
Watts, 1 February 1787, published by Simon Watts, No. 50, opposite Old Round Court,
Strand (stipple and etching).
The Gleaners, Charles Knight, 1 March 1787, published by William Dickinson, Engraver and
Print seller, No. 158 New Bond Street (stipple and etching).
Frederick Zemmerman, James Bretherton 7 March 1787, published by James
Bretherton, New Bond Street.542
The Death of Count de Peltzer, James Bretherton, 9 March 1787, published by James
Bretherton, New Bond Street (hand coloured etching).543
The Beautiful Stranger Poisoned by her Sister, Thomas Ryder, 31 March 1787, published by
S. Watts, No. 50, opposite Old Round Court, the Strand (stipple and etching).
The Village Ale-House, Joseph Grozier, 7 April 1787, published by William Dickinson, Engraver
and Print seller, No. 158 New Bond Street.544
542
Dedicated by the print maker to the Countess of Sutherland, the owner of the original drawing.
Dedicated by the print maker to the Countess of Sutherland.
‘No more the Farmer’s News, the Barber’s Tale, No more the Woodman’s ballad shall prevail, No more the Smith his
duskey brow shall clear, Relax his pond'rous strength and lean to hear; The Host himself, no longer shall be found carefull
to see the mantling bliss go round! Nor the Coy Maid, half willing to be press’d, Shal kiss the Cup, and pass it to the rest’.
Goldsmith’s Deserted Village.
543
544
267
A Long Minuet as danced at Bath, William Dickinson, 25 June 1787, published by William
Dickinson, Engraver, Bond Street (stipple) (BM 7229).
(Also undated, reduced version in BM, 10 figures in 2 rows, coloured etching).
Propagation of a Lie, William Dickinson, 29 Dec 1787, (BM 7230).
The Academy for Grown Horsemen, issued, printed for William Dickinson.
How to stop your Horse at pleasure, William Paulet Carey, 1787, published by William
Allen, No. 32 Dame Street, Dublin (stipple) (copy). 8 Irish piracies of Bunbury’s
illustrations for The Academy for Grown Horsemen (1787) originally engraved by William
Dickinson.
The Mistaken Notion, William Paulet Carey, 25 June 1787, published by William Allen, No. 32
Dame Street, Dublin (stipple) (copy 7232).
A Bit of Blood, William Paulet Carey, 1787, published by William Allen, No. 32
Dame Street, Dublin (stipple) (copy of 7233).
How to ride Genteel and Agreeable down hill, William Paulet Carey, 1787, published
by William Allen, No. 32 Dame Street, Dublin (stipple) (copy 7235).
How to Lose your Way, William Paulet Carey, 1787, published by William Allen, No. 32
Dame Street, Dublin (stipple) (copy 7236).
How to turn any Horse, Mare or Gelding, William Paulet Carey, 1787, published by
William Allen, No. 32 Dame Street, Dublin (stipple) (copy 7237).
How to ride a Horse upon three legs, Discovered in A.D. 1768, William Paulet Carey,
1787, published by William Allen, No. 32 Dame Street, Dublin (stipple) (copy 7241).
How to ride up Hyde Park, William Paulet Carey, 1787, published by William Allen, No.
32 Dame Street, Dublin (stipple) (copy).545
1788
Misery, John Jones, 2 February 1788, published by John Jones, No. 75 Great Portland Street,
Portland Place (mixed media).546
545
The lines accompanying this print are from Sheridan’s Prologue to Pizzaro.
268
A Tale of Love, James Bretherton, 3 March 1788, published by James Bretherton, New Bond
Street.
The Duel between Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Viola, Charles Knight, 10 Mar 1788, published
by William Dickinson, Engraver, Bond Street (stipple and etching).547
The Storm, Thomas Trotter and J. Jones, 7 April 1788, published by J. Jones, No. 75 Great
Portland Street (oval: stipple and etching).
The Repose, John Pettit, 7 April 1788, published by John Jones, No. 75 Great Portland Street
(stipple etching).
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, William Henry Kingsley, 1 June 1788, published by S. W. Fores,
No. 3 Piccadilly (BM 7441).548
The Installation Supper, James Gillray, 4 June 1788, 4 plates published by S. W. Fores, No. 3
Piccadilly, all the Works of Bunbury, & Gillray, to be had (hand coloured etching with inscription to
Bunbury on plate 4) (BM 7330).549
The Country Club, William Dickinson, 26 June 1788, published by William Dickinson, Engraver,
No. 158 New Bond Street (stipple, also hand coloured etching) (BM 7452). 550
Welch peasants, 20 August 1788.
As You Like It, Charles Knight, 20 December 1788, published by William Dickinson, Engraver,
Bond Street (stipple).551
1789
Ryder’s engraving of Thomas Lawrence’s portrait of Bunbury (24 April) coloured stipple.
Morning employments, 1789, F. W. Tomkins.
The Overthrow of Dr. Slop, James Bretherton, 3 February 1789, reissue, published by J. Harris,
Sweetings Alley, Cornhill.
‘To barter Virtue to see the Parent led and with a Child’s dishonour, purchase Bread’.
Dedicated to Mrs. Jordan in admiration of her performance as Viola by the draughtsman.
Design inspired by Bunbury’s A Long Minuet and includes ten couples dancing over four plates joined together.
549
‘The Installation Supper, as given by the Knights of the Bath, on the 26th of May, 1788. ‘
550
Latin motto ‘Let us go where greed leads us’. Companion print of The Village Ale-House, 7 April 1787.
551
‘Dedicated to Mrs. Jordan in admiration of her performance as Rosalind by the draughtsman’.
546
547
548
269
Symptoms of Rearing, James Bretherton, 27 February 1789, reissue, published by J. Harris,
Sweetings Alley, Cornhill.
Charlotte, C. White, 21 March 1789, published by C. White, Kemps Row, Chelsea (stipple
etching in brown).
A Militia Meeting, James Bretherton, 23 May 1789/99, reissue, S. W. Fores, No 30 Piccadilly.
Hints to Bad Horsemen, 1 October 1789, printed for J. Smith, No. 35 Cheapside, (hand
coloured etching) (BM 7610).552
Edwin and Ethelinde, F. D. Soiron, 10 November 1790, published by Thomas Macklin Poet’s
Gallery, Fleet Street (stipple and etching).
Le Perruquier Patriote, anonymous reworking of A Barber Shop, November 1789 (hand
coloured etching and aquatint) (BM 6882).553
La Place Victoire a Paris, Thomas Rowlandson, November 1789, published by S. Alken, No. 2
Francis Street, East Bedford Square (hand coloured etching) (BM 9679).
1790
Untitled – Lady with grapes, William Dickinson, 1 January 1790, published by William Dickinson,
Engraver, Bond Street.
Untitled – Lady and Friars, William Dickinson, 1 January 1790, published by William Dickinson,
Engraver, Bond Street.
Sheikh Ibrahim entertains Nourreddin and the Fair Persian in the Palace of
Pleasures, Thomas Ryder and J. L. Cosse, 19 February 1790, published by S. Watts,
No. 9 Kennington Cross, Lambeth & to be had at Mr. Ryder’s, No. 43 Great Titchfield
Street, Oxford Road (hand coloured/stipple and etching).
Morigiani Discovering the Arab Robber through his Disguise, Stabs him whilst
Dancing before her Master, Thomas Ryder and J. L. Crosse, 19 February 1790, Simon
A play on Bunbury’s lines ‘Ah me! what various ills betide the Looby who presumes to ride’ becomes ‘Alas what
troubles oft betide the Booby who attempts to ride’.
553
‘Au sort de la Patrie, oui mon coeur s’interesse, Que l’on me laisse faire, il n’est plus de debat. Je rase le clerge, je
peigne la Noblesse, j’accomode le Tiers Etat’.
552
270
Watts, No. 9 Kennington Cross, Lambeth; and to be had at Mr. Ryder’s, No. 43 Great
Titchfield Street, Oxford Road (stipple and etching).
Moses, James Bretherton, 27 Feb 1790, published by J. Harris, Sweetings Alley, Cornhill Lewis
Walpole.
Atalanta, Joshua Kirby Baldrey, 4 March 1790, published by John Raphael Smith, King Street,
Covent Garden.554
Autolycus changing garments, Charles Knight, 1 June 1790, published by William Dickinson,
Engraver, Bond Street (stipple etching).
A Recruiting Party, 1 June 1790, J. Jeffryes, reissue, published by Bull & Jeffryes, Ludgate Hill
(BM 7800).
Beauty and The Beast, William Dickinson, 1 June 1790, published by William Dickinson,
Engraver, Bond Street (stipple etching).
Untitled – Woman and child, George Shepheard, 1 June 1790, published by William Dickinson,
Engraver, Bond Street (stipple and etching).
The Blind Beggar and his Daughter, John Chapman, 20 August 1790, published by Thomas
Macklin Poet’s Gallery (stipple and etching). 555
1791
Black George, John Chapman, 5 January 1791, published by Thomas Macklin Poet’s Gallery
(stipple and etching).
1st edition of The Annals of Horsemanship
The Academy for Grown Horsemen, illustrations, William Dickinson, 25 March 1791.
The Puzzle for the Horse, The Puzzle for the Turk, French man or Christian, William
Dickinson, 25 March 1791, published by William Dickinson, No. 24 Old Bond Street.
A College Gate, Divines Going on Duty, Watson & Dickinson, 2 April 1791, reissue published
by John Harris, Sweetings Alley, Cornhill. Lewis Walpole.
554
Dedicated by the print maker to the Marchioness of Salisbury as a patroness of Archery.
Anonymous Ballad ‘ A blind beggar that has long lost his sight, He had a fair daughter of most beauty bright, And many
a gallant brave suitor had she, For none so comely as pretty Bessey…’
555
271
Modern Graces, Edmund Swift, Engraver to their Royal Highnesses the Dukes of York and
Clarence, 1 May 1791, published by S. W. Fores, No. 3 Piccadilly (stipple and etching). 556
The Market Girl, George Shepheard, 1 June 1791, no print seller’s details (stipple and etching).
A Light Infantryman, F. D. Soiron, 20 July 1791, published by Thomas Macklin, 39 Fleet Street
(stipple and etching, also coloured).
A Foot Soldier, F. D. Soiron, 20 July 1791, published by Thomas Macklin, 39 Fleet Street
(stipple and etching).
A Lifeguardsman, F. D. Soiron, 30 July 1791, published by Thomas Macklin, 39 Fleet Street
(stipple and etching).
A Light Horseman, F. D. Soiron, 30 July 1791, published by Thomas Macklin, 39 Fleet Street
(stipple and etching).
A Girl of Dauphiny, Edward Harding, 1 August 1791 by Edward Harding No. 132 Fleet Street
(etching and roulette).
A Pioneer, F. D. Soiron, 6 November 1791, published by Thomas Macklin, 39 Fleet Street
(stipple and etching).
A Drummer, F. D. Soiron, published 6 November 1791 by Thomas Macklin, 39 Fleet Street
(stipple and etching).
Winifreda, Charles Knight, 10 November 1791 (stipple).
Untitled print – Woman with two children, William Dickinson, 10 November 1791, published by
William Dickinson, No. 24 Old Bond Street (stipple).
Marian, P. W. Tomkins, 20 November 1791, published by Thomas Macklin, 39 Fleet Street
(stipple and etching).557
c.1791
BM notes: “The print was reviewed in the Thespian Magazine I, 45 in 1793: ‘Grace is in all her steps; in every gesture
dignity and love’. The quotation is amply justified in the print, for we can with great truth affirm the elegance of the
composition – the beauty of the portraits and the naiveté of expression, renders this print, especially when coloured, the
most striking we have ever seen – the portraits are said to be of 3 ladies of the first fashion; but as Mr. Bunbury never
publishes his models, it is not for us to discover – The engraver merits much praise, as the sketch was extremely slight,
and he has certainly produced a most happy effect. The reverse gives the publisher as Samuel Fores and the price 7/- 6d
plain, 15/- coloured.”
557
14 lines of verse, including ‘ Last Friday’s eve, when as the sun was set, I near you stile, 3 sallow gypsies met… Vide
Gay’s Pastorals’.
556
272
The Mistaken Notion, W. P. Carey, published by William Allen, 32 Dame Street, Dublin. 558
1792
2ND edition of The Annals of Horsemanship.
Falstaff with Hotspur on his back, J. J. Vandenburgh, 30 April 1792, published by Thomas
Macklin Poet’s Gallery (stipple and etching with hand colouring).
Patience in a Punt, William Dickinson, 1 May 1792, published by William Dickinson, Engraver
and Print seller, No. 24, Old Bond Street (stipple) (BM 8206/7).
A Smoking Club, William Dickinson, 1 May 1792, published by William Dickinson, Engraver and
Print seller, No. 24, Old Bond Street (stipple) (BM 8205).
Falstaff at Hern’s Oak, Brandoin, 24 May 1792, published by Thomas Macklin Poet’s Gallery
(stipple and etching).
Le Debarquement du Chevalier John Bull et de sa famille a Boulogne sur mer/The Landing
of Sir John Bull and his family at Boulogne sur mer, James Gillray, 31 May 1792, published
by Hannah Humphrey, No. 18 Old Bond Street (BM 8189).
Falstaff reproved by King Henry Henry IV, Shenner, 1 June 1792, published by Thomas
Macklin Poet’s Gallery (stipple and etching).
Falstaff mustering his Recruits, William Nelson Gardiner, 1 June 1792, published by Thomas
Macklin Poet’s Gallery (stipple and etching).
Falstaff at Justice Shallow’s mustering his Recruits, William Nelson Gardiner, 1 June 1792,
published by Thomas Macklin Poet’s Gallery (stipple and etching).
Rosalind, Celia and Touchstone, J. Chapman, 1 June 1792, published by Thomas Macklin
Poet’s Gallery (stipple and etching).
The Supposed death of Imogen, T. Cheesman, 1 June 1792, published by Thomas Macklin
Poet’s Gallery (stipple and etching). 559
Bethnal Green – Hie Away, Juno, William Dickinson, 11 June 1792, published by William
Dickinson, No. 24 Old Bond Street (stipple) (BM 8208).
558
‘One of eight Dublin piracies of plates to Bunbury’s Academy for Grown Horsemen’.
273
Prospero disarming Ferdinand, Francesco Bartolozzi, 20 June 1792, published by Thomas
Macklin Poet’s Gallery (stipple and etching).
Black Eyed Susan, William Dickinson, 1 November 1792, published by William Dickinson, No.
24 Old Bond Street (stipple and etching). 560
A Camp Scene, J. Harris, 2 November 1792, published by J. Harris, Sweetings Alley, Cornhill &
No 8 Bond Street, Lewis Walpole
Jacques discovered by the Duke, J. Chapman, 20 November 1792, published by Thomas
Macklin Poet’s Gallery (stipple and etching).
Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Sir Toby Belch and the Clown, P. W. Tomkins, 30 November 1792,
published by Thomas Macklin Poet’s Gallery (stipple and etching, printed in colour and with
additional hand colouring).
Falstaff’s escape, James Chapman, 30 November 1792, published by Thomas Macklin’s Poet’s
Gallery, Fleet Street (etching and stipple, also coloured).
Macbeth and the Murderers, John Coles, 30 November 1792, published by Thomas Macklin
Poet’s Gallery, Fleet Street, (stipple and etching).
Helena in the Dress of a Pilgrim, J. Chapman, 30 Dec 1792, published by Thomas Macklin
Poet’s Gallery (stipple and etching).
Light Infantry Man, Antonio Suntach, 31 December 1792 (copy from F. D. Soiron, 1791).
1793
Dogbery and Verges with the Watch, Robert Mitchell Meadows, 1 Jan 1793, published by
Thomas Macklin Poet’s Gallery, Fleet Street (stipple and etching printed in colour).
A Militia Meeting, James Bretherton, reissue of 1773 print.
The Taming the Shrew, William Satchwell Leney, 17 Feb 1793, published by Thomas Macklin
Poet’s Gallery
559
560
Dedicated by the publisher to the Duchess of York, the owner of the original drawing.
‘Her less’ning boat, unwilling rows to land; Adieu! She cries, and wav’d her lily hand. Gay’.
274
Petruchio, Katherine &c, 27 February 1793, published by Thomas Macklin Poet’s Gallery
(stipple and etching).
Falstaff with Hotspur on his Back, J/Ignatius Joseph Vandenburgh, published by Thomas
Macklin Poet’s Gallery, Fleet Street (stipple and engraving). 561
Falstaff in Hern’s Oak, Michele Benedetti, 30 May 1793, reissue, published by Thomas Macklin
Poet’s Gallery, Fleet Street (etching and stipple, also coloured).
1794
Launce teaching his Dog Crab to behave as a Dog in all things, 1 January 1794, published
by Thomas Macklin Poet’s Gallery, Fleet Street (stipple and etching printed in colour).
Romeo and Juliet in Friar Lawrence’s Cell, J. J. Vandenburgh, 1 January 1794, published by
Thomas Macklin Poet’s Gallery, Fleet Street (stipple and etching printed in colour). 562
Lady Anne Bothwell’s Lament, William Dickinson, 20 January 1794, published by William
Dickinson, Old Bond Street (stipple).563
Robin Gray, William Dickinson, 10 February 1794, reissue of 1784 print, published by William
Dickinson, No. 144 Old Bond Street (stipple and etching). 564
The Country Club, William Dickinson, 5 March 1794, reissue of 1788 print, published by John
Jeffryes, Ludgate Hill (stipple).
The Dinner: Symptoms of Eating and Drinking, John Jeffryes, 5 March 1794, reissue,
published by John Jeffryes, Ludgate Hill (BM).
The Breakfast: Symptoms of Drowsiness, William Dickinson, 5 March 1794, reissue, published
by W. Dickinson and J. Jeffryes, Ludgate Hill (BM 8537)
A Mendicant, Joshua Kirby Baldrey, 8 March 1794, published by S. W. Fores, No. 3 Piccadilly. 565
‘From an original in the collection of Her Royal Highness the Du[t]chess of York, to whom this plate is dedicated’.
‘ In the collection of the Duchess of York’.
563
Illustration to the Ballad of the same name printed in Angelica’s Ladies Library (1794). ‘Balow my boy, lie still and
sleep, it grieves me sore to see thee weep’.
564
Illustration to the Ballad of Robin Gray in Angelica’s Ladies Library (1794).
565
From Sterne’s Sentimental Journey (1768). ‘It was one of those Heads which Guido has often painted. Mild, Pale,
Penetrating, free from all common place Ideas of fat contented Ignorance looking downwards upon the Earth, it look’d
forwards, but it look’d at something beyond this World’.
561
562
275
A Smoking Club, William Dickinson, 15 March 1794, reissue of 1792 plate, published by S. W.
Fores, No. 3 Piccadilly.
Adelaide entering in disguise the Abbey of La Trappe, hears her lover’s voice, William
Dickinson, 25 March 1794, published by S. W. Fores, No. 3 Piccadilly (stipple and aquatint).
Florizel and Autolycus Exchange Garments, Benjamin Dunterrow sculp., Francesco Bartolozzi
RA dirext., 24 May 1794, published by Thomas Macklin Poet’s Gallery (stipple and etching,
printed in colour).
St. Bruno Reproving his Disciples, John Jones, 1 June 1794, published by J. Jones, No. 74
Great Portland Street (stipple) (BM 8539).
A Conversation in the Tuileries, John Jones, 1 June 1794, published by J. Jones, No. 74 Great
Portland Street (stipple).
Angelica’s Ladies Library; or, Parents and Guardians Present. With eight elegant plates,
designed by A. Kauffman and H. Bunbury (London: J Hamilton, 1794), vi, 440 p, 8 pls. Dedicated
to the Queen.
1795
Going to and from Market, George Shepheard, 1 February 1795, published by J. Thane, Spur
Street, Leicester Square.
Louisa, George Shepheard, 24 February 1795, published by Laurie & Whittle, 53 Fleet Street
(stipple etching).
Jenny, George Shepheard, 24 February 1795, published by Laurie & Whittle, 53 Fleet Street
(stipple etching).
The Wife of Hassan Alhabbal in cutting open the fish she finds a large Diamond, William
Dickinson, 10 April 1795, published by William Dickinson, No. 53, next York House, Piccadilly
(stipple and etching).
The First Interview of the Prince of Persia and Schemselnihar at the House of Ehn Thair,
William Dickinson, 10 April 1795, No. 53, next York House, Piccadilly (stipple and etching).
276
Prospero disarming Ferdinand, Francesco Bartolozzi, 20 June 1795, published by Thomas
Macklin Poet’s Gallery (stipple and etching, printed in colour).
Fluellen making Pistol eat the Leek, Robert Mitchell Meadows, 1 August 1795, published by
Thomas Macklin’s Poet’s Gallery, Fleet Street (stipple and etching, printed in colour). 566
Dick the Butcher and Smith the Weaver seizing the Cloak of Chatham, J. Coles, 20 August
1795, published by Thomas Macklin’s Poet’s Gallery, Fleet Street (stipple and etching, printed in
colour).
Jacques discovered by the Duke, J. Chapman, 10 November 1795, published by Thomas
Macklin Poet’s Gallery (stipple and etching, printed in colour).
In Ipswich with Militia – starts Familiar Letters and abandoned it.
1796
The Academy for Grown Horsemen and The Annals of Horsemanship reissued, printed for
Hooper & Wigstead.
Falstaff playing the Prince and the Prince playing the King, Thomas Macklin, 21 March 1796,
Thomas Macklin’s Poet’s Gallery, Fleet Street, (stipple and etching, printed in colour).
Autolycus selling his Wares, Charles Knight, 1 June 1796, published by I. Paine New Road,
Fitzroy Square (stipple etching).
Real Inhabitants of this Earth, George Shepheard, 10 January 1796, published by Thomas
Macklin.
1797
The Propagation of a Lie, William Dickinson, 29 December 1797, reissue, 3 plates, published by
William Dickinson, Bond Street (BM 7230).567
1798
566
567
‘In the collection of the Duchess of York’.
‘From an original drawing by H. Bunbury, Esqr. In the possession of John Hayes, Esqr, Bath’.
277
Academy for Grown Horsemen and The Annals of Horsemanship reissued with illustrations
by Thomas Rowlandson
1799
An Englishman at Paris, James Bretherton, reissue, 27 February 1799, published by J. Harris,
Sweetings Alley, Cornhill (hand coloured etching) (BM 4185).
A Militia Meeting, James Bretherton, 23 May 1799, reissue of 1773 original, published by S. W.
Fores, No. 50 Piccadilly (BM 4759).
A Grinning match, Thomas Rowlandson, c. 1799(hand coloured etching) (BM 9473).
Cits airing themselves on Sunday, Thomas Rowlandson, c. 1799.
Procession of a Country Corporation, Thomas Rowlandson, c. 1799.
The City Hunt, reissue of 1781 original (undated, hand coloured etching) (BM 11646).
The Easter Hunt at Epping Forest, James Bretherton, 1 March 1799, reissue of original,
date?published by J. Harris, No. 3 Sweetings Alley, Cornhill.
c. 1800-1810
Recruits, reissue of 1780 original (copy BM 4766).
City Foulers Mark, Thomas Rowlandson (hand coloured etching).
1801
Tales of the Devil, from the Original Gibberish by Professor Lumpwitz, S.U.S. and C.A.C. in the
University of Snoringberg (London, 1801).
Clod Lumpwitz, Gib Prof. Charles Tyrell, frontispiece to Tales of the Devil (1801).
Tales of Terror (London, W. Bulmer & Co, 1801)
Dr. Dawdle in a Hurry, restrike of original 1782 plate by James Bretherton, 1 July 1801,
published by S. W. Fores.
1802
278
The Songstress, John Raphael Smith, 5 April 1802, J. Harris, No. 3 Sweetings Alley, Cornhill &
Old Broad Street (stipple and etching).568
From a Sketch taken at Portsmouth, P. John Harris, 30 March 1802 reissue 1785 plate,
published by John Harris, No. 3 Sweetings Alley (stipple and etching).
An old Newsman at Bury, Charles Tyrell (no publication details).
1803
Recruits, James Dickinson, reissue, published by Watson & Dickinson, reissued again in 1811.
The Breakfast, Symptoms of Drowsiness, William Dickinson, 21 April 1803, reissue of 1794
plate, published by J. Harris, No. 3 Sweetings Alley, Cornhill and Old Bond Street (stipple) (BM
8537).
A Barber’s Shop in Assize Time, Charles Knight, 21 April 1803, reissue, published by J. Harris,
No. 3 Sweetings Alley, Cornhill and 8, Old Broad Street (stipple) (BM 6882/A).
The Gleaners, William Dickinson, 26 April 1803, reissue from 1787, published by Anthony
Molteno, Print seller to H. R. H. the Duchess of York, No. 29 Pall Mall (stipple etching)
The Hop Pickers, William Dickinson, 26 April 1803, published by Anthony Molteno, Print seller to
H. R. H the Duchess of York, No. 29 Pall Mall.
A Back-Side and Front View of a Modern Fine Lady, Vide Bunbury, or the Swimming Venus
of Ramsgate, Isaac Cruikshank, c. October 1803, published by S. W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly,
Caricatures lent out for the evening (hand coloured etching).
1803-5
Contributions to Boydell’s Shakespeare
A Barber’s Shop, Charles Knight, 21 April 1803, reissue of 1785 original, published by J. Harris,
No. 3 Sweetings Alley, Cornhill and 8, Old Broad Street (BM 6882A).
The Breakfast: Symptoms of Drowsiness, 21 April 1803, reissue of 1794 print, published by J.
Harris, No. 3 Sweetings Alley, Cornhill and Old Broad Street.
568
‘Through the calm air, the melting numbers float, And wanton echo lengthens every note’. After Sir William Jones.
279
1804
Savoy, William Dickinson, 6 October 1804, published by John P. Thompson, Great Newport
Street (stipple and etching).
Tuscany, William Dickinson, 16 October 1804, published by John P. Thompson, Great Newport
Street (stipple and etching).
c. 1807
Symptoms of Restiveness, Thomas Rowlandson.
A Calf’s Pluck, Rusty Bacon, Thomas Rowlandson, published by Thomas Tegg, 111 Cheapside
(hand coloured etching) (BM 10922).
1808
The Annals of Horsemanship, reissued by W. Baynes, London, 4 May 1808, illustrations by
Thomas Rowlandson.
The Academy for Grown Horsemen 3rd edition by W. Baynes, London, June 11 1808,
illustrations by Thomas Rowlandson.
The Shaver and the Shavee, Thomas Rowlandson, from The Miseries of Human Life series,
published by Rudolph Ackermann (hand coloured) (BM 10857, 4756 reversed copy).
1809
The Academy for Grown Horsemen 3rd edition with engravings by Thomas Rowlandson.
The Rivals, George Shepheard, 1 January 1809, published by J. Deeley, 95 Berwick Street,
Soho (stipple and hand coloured).
Real Inhabitants of this Earth, George Shepheard, 1 January 1809, reissue, published by J.
Deeley, 95 Berwick Street (hand coloured stipple) (BM 11456). From a series of 6 plates
originally published by Thomas Macklin, 10 January 1796.
280
The Fort, George Shepheard, 1 January 1809, reissue, published by J. Deeley, 95 Berwick
Street (hand coloured stipple) (BM 11456). From a series of 6 plates originally published by
Thomas Macklin, 10 January 1796.
Love at first sight, George Shepheard, 1 January 1809, reissue, published by J. Deeley, 95
Berwick Street (hand coloured stipple) (BM 11456). From a series of 6 plates originally published
by Thomas Macklin, 10 January 1796.
A Farmer’s Philosophy of [mutilated] death, George Moutard Woodward, published by
Thomas Tegg, 111 Cheapside, 1 shilling coloured (undated) (BM 11472).
1811
Patience in a Punt, Thomas Rowlandson.
A Barber’s Shop in Assize time, James Gillray, published 9 January 1811 by H. Humphrey, St.
James’s Street, London, The Last Work of the late James Gillray, Now First published 15 May
1818 by G. Humphrey, nephew and successor, to the late Mrs. Humphrey, 27 St. James’s Street,
reworking of 1785 print (hand coloured etching) (BM 11779).
Anglers of 1811, Thomas Rowlandson.
Lumps of Pudding, William Heath, 15 August 181, 5 plates published by Robinson, 5 Margaret
Street, Cavendish Square and Colnaghi, Cockspur Street, 10s 6d plain, one guinea brown or
coloured in a superior manner (BM 11834).
Recruits, reissued, engraved by Rowlandson.
Pistol eating Fluellen’s Leek, crude copy, no engraver or print seller details (BM 11835).
1812
Comforts of an Irish Fishing Lodge, Thomas Rowlandson, 12 May 1812, published by Hannah
Humphreys, No. 27 St. James’s Street (hand coloured etching) (BM 11975).
Anglers of 1611, Thomas Rowlandson, (hand coloured etching). [Probably published as a pair
with Comforts of an Irish Fishing Lodge, c. 1812, by Hannah Humphreys, No. 27 St. James’s
Street].
281
1815
The Breakfast – Symptoms of Drowsiness (?)
1817
Feeling Queer, 1 July 1817, reissue of 1794 print, published by Colnaghi and Co. Cockspur
Street (hand coloured etching and aquatint). 569
1819
Real Inhabitants of this Earth, George Shepheard, 1 January 1819, reissue, published by S. W.
Fores (hand coloured stipple).
1823
Recruits, by John Cawse, reissue, printed by Charles Joseph Hullmandel, published by Rodwell
and Martin, New Bond Street (lithograph) (BM 4766 – copy).
1824
Bribery and Corruption, William Henry Hunt, printed by Charles Joseph Hullmandel, published
by Rudolph Ackermann, 101 Strand(lithograph from A Facsimile of Sketches).
The Complete (April 1st) Angler, William Henry Hunt, printed by Charles Joseph Hullmandel,
published by Rodwell and Martin, New Bond Street (lithograph from A Facsimile of Sketches).
Fee Fa Fum – The Nurse, William Henry Hunt, printed by Charles Joseph Hullmandel, published
by Rudolph Ackermann, 101 Strand (lithograph from A Facsimile of Sketches).
1825
The Academy for Grown Horsemen and The Annals of Horsemanship reissued by Rudolph
Ackermann.
569
‘From an original by H. Bunbury Esq. in the collection of the Right Honourable the Earl of Carlisle’.
282
A Small Account Sir – May Have Slipped Your Memory, William Henry Hunt, printed by
Charles Joseph Hullmandel, published by Rudolph Ackermann (lithograph from A Facsimile of
Sketches).
Dose-ing the Squire, William Henry Hunt, 10 January 1825, printed by Charles Joseph
Hullmandel, published by Rudolph Ackermann (lithograph from A Facsimile of Sketches).
1828
Bunbury’s Whims, William Bernard Cooke, 1 July 1828, William Bernard Cooke, 9 Soho Square
(hand coloured etching).
See also:
Henry Bunbury Esqr, Thomas Blackmore, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1769 (mezzotint).
Henry William Bunbury, Thomas Ryder after Thomas Lawrence, 21 April 1789 (stipple etching).
Sir Charles Bunbury, J. Watson after Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1768 (mezzotint).
Symptoms of Deep Thinking, Sir Charles Bunbury, James Gillray, 25 March 1800, published
by H. Humphrey (hand coloured etching) (BM 9559).
Lady Sarah Bunbury, Edward Fisher, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1766 (mezzotint). Exhibited at
the Society of Artists, 1765.
Mrs. Bunbury, James Watson after Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1 May 1778, published by John
Boydell, Engraver in Cheapside (mezzotint).
Mrs. Bunbury, J. Young, 15 January 1791, after J. Hopner, Portrait Painter to His Royal
Highness the Prince of Wales, printed and published by J. Young, Engraver in Mezzotinto to His
Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, No. 7 Cockspur Street, Haymarket(mezzotint). [bonnet]
Mrs. Bunbury and Mrs. Gwynne, William Dickinson after D. Gardiner, published 20 January
1780 by W. Dickinson and Watson, No. 158 New Bond Street (mezzotint).
283
Master Bunbury, Francis Haward, 1(12) November 1781, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, published
by Francis Haward, Lambeth Marsh, near the Turnpike (mezzotint) NPG.
284
PRIMARY SOURCES
Illustrated books by Sir Henry William Bunbury, published 1787-1801
1787
BUNBURY, Sir Henry William, An Academy for Grown Horsemen, Containing the Completest
Instructions for Walking, Trotting, Cantering, Galloping, Stumbling and Tumbling, By Geoffrey
Gambado, Esq., Riding Master, Master of the Horse and Grand Equerry to the Doge of Venice
(London, 1787)
1791
BUNBURY, Sir Henry William, Annals of Horsemanship, Containing Accounts of Accidental
Experiments and Experimental Accidents, Both Successful and Unsuccessful: Communicated by
Various Correspondents to Geoffrey Gambado, Esq., Author of The Academy for Grown
Horsemen: Together with Most Instructive Remarks Thereon and Answers Thereto, by that
Accomplished Genius (London, 1791)
1801
BUNBURY, Sir Henry William, Tales of the Devil, From the Original Gibberish of Profr. Lumpwitz,
S. U. S. and C. A. C. in the University of Snoringberg (London, 1801)
1801
BUNBURY, Sir Henry William, Tales of Terror, With an Introductory Dialogue (London, 1801)
285
PRIMARY SOURCES
Reference works with mention of Bunbury’s work
1790
WALKER’S HIBERNIAN MAGAZINE [21], Part I (1790)
1811
THE GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE, May 1811, LXXXI (Part I)
1823
WILSON, John, ‘Lectures on the Fine Arts’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (July
1823), X1V.
1824
THE SOMERSET HOUSE GAZETTE (1824)
1828
ANGELO, Henry, Reminiscences of Henry Angelo, with Memoirs of his late Father and
Friends (London, 1828-30), 1, 411-13
1830
MALCOLM, J. P., An Historical Sketch of the Art of Caricaturing (London, 1830)
1865
WRIGHT, Thomas, A History of Caricatures and Grotesque in Literature and Art (London,
1865), 456-459
1868
BUNBURY, Sir C. J. F., Memoir and Literary Remains of Lieutenant General Sir Henry
Edward Bunbury, Bart (London, 1868), 229-240
1880
GREGO, Joseph, Rowlandson the Caricaturist: A Selection from his Works with
Anecdotal Descriptions of his famous Caricatures and A Sketch of his Life, Times and
Contemporaries (London, 1800), Vol. 1.
1886
EVERITT, Graham, English Caricaturists and Great Humorists of the Nineteenth Century:
How they Interpreted Their Times (London, 1886)
1889
THORNBER, Henry, ‘Henry William Bunbury’ The Manchester Quarterly (April 1889), 1-8
1904
BRINTON, Selwyn, The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature (London, 1904),
chapter 3 ‘The Comedy of Society’, 29-52
1905
PASTON, George, Social Caricature in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1905), 80-84
1950
Exhibition Bunbury Bicentenary Exhibition at the Athenaeum, Bury St. Edmunds, 3-15
July 1950
1967
GEORGE, M. D., Hogarth to Cruikshank, Social Change in Graphic Satire (London:
Penguin, 1967), 57, 68-69, 144-147
286
1975
DAVIS, Frank, ‘The Lively Henry Bunbury’ in Art and Antiques Weekly, vol. 20, no. 3, (9
August 1975), 16-17
RIELY, John, ‘Horace Walpole and ‘the second Hogarth’’ in Eighteenth Century Studies,
Vol. 9, No. 1 (Autumn 1975), 28-44
1978
CLEMENTS, Marilyn, ‘Henry William Bunbury, Gentleman Caricaturist’ The Proceedings
of The Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, vol. XXIV, part 2, 129-136
1983
Exhibition ‘Henry William Bunbury, 1750-1811’ at Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, 28
February – 10 April 1983 (exhibition catalogue by John Riely)
1991
VOOGD (VAN DE), Peter, ‘Henry William Bunbury, Illustrator of Tristram Shandy’ The
Shandean 3 (1991), 138-144
1996
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