James Gillray
Collections record: P.233-1948
1757-1815 Etching with hand colouring, 1791
Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France of 1790 had fractured opinion in Britain. From now on supporters of events in France could be seen as dangerous liberals. Here a French mob composed of ‘working men’ (see the implements of trade they are waving) uses excessive force to recapture the French royal family, who tried to escape the country in 1791. The French stereotype is now more bloodthirsty and savage than that of Hogarth’s prints. Notice Gillray does not spare the cowardly royal family either.
Given by Lady Violet Beaumont, 1948 (P.233-1948)
