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Ladies dress, as it soon will be.

• Object type

  • satirical print
  • print

• Museum number

  J,3.85

• Title (object)

  • Ladies dress, as it soon will be.

• Description

  A lady, young and handsome, stands in profile to the left holding a closed fan in both hands. She wears one garment only, a quasi-classical tunic, its waist immediately below the breasts which are almost bare. It is slit at the side to show a leg with gartered stocking. Her hair is bound with a ribbon and falls loosely on forehead and shoulders. In it are three ostrich feathers. A panelled wall, with a candle-sconce and showing part of a large mirror (left), forms a background. There is a patterned carpet. Perhaps a portrait of Lady C. Campbell. 20 January 1796
  Hand-coloured etching

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• Producer name

  • Print made by: James Gillray
  • Published by: Hannah Humphrey

• School/style

  • British

• Date

  • 1796

• Production place

  • Published in: London
  • (Europe,British Isles,England,London)

• Materials

  • paper

• Technique

  • hand-coloured
  • etching

• Dimensions

  • Height: 306 millimetres
  • Width: 217 millimetres

• Inscriptions

  • • Inscription Content

      Lettered with title and production details: 'Henry C____l del. [Gillray] / Pubd Jany 20th 1796. by H. Humphrey. New Bond Street'.

• Curator's comments

  (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VII, 1942)
  For the fashion of classical draperies moulding the figure cf. BMSats 8388, 8571, 8758, &c, 8897-8905, 9457, &c. It was especially associated with Lady Charlotte Campbell, see BMSat 8719. Cf. T. J. Mathias, 'Pursuits of Literature', ii, 1796,1. 220, n.: 'The dress of the present period has warranted the caricatures of the day, particularly . . . "the dress of Ladies as it will be".' The 'Morning Chronicle', 26 Feb. 1796: 'The ladies of the present day, without waists, do not perhaps know that they copy that fashion from Madame Tallien, who copied it from the Greeks.'
  One of the prints in Humphrey's window in Gillray's 'Very Slippy-Weather', 1808.
  Reprinted, 'G.W.G.', 1830. Reproduced, Fuchs, p. 201.

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• Bibliography

  • BM Satires 8896

• Location

  Not on display (British XVIIIc Unmounted Roy)

• Subjects

  • satire

• Associated names

  • Representation of: Lady Charlotte Susan Maria Bury

• Acquisition name

  • Donated by: Dorothea, Lady Banks
  • Previous owner/ex-collection: Sarah Sophia Banks

• Department

  Prints & Drawings

• Registration number

  J,3.85