Gillray (James) After.

this slightly later close copy from Miller and Blackwood’s ‘The Caricatures of Gillray’ of the caricaturist’s original social satire, issued by Hannah Humphrey in 1800, a very early depiction of the new continental dance, the waltz, being performed in England several years before it is traditionally understood to have been introduced. It depicts a very slight, but eager, young man having to hold his taller and considerably fatter partner by a length of cloth around her waist, as his arms won’t reach. This is, doubtless, the reference to the ‘mouchoir’, or handkerchief, normally on a much smaller scale and held in the hand. Two other more conventional couples dance in the background, all below a chandelier, while a figure playing a French horn is the only musician to be seen in the gallery up above,

etching with original hand-colouring on wove paper, 270 x 215 mm. (10 5/8 x 8 1/2 in), trimmed on or just within the upper and side platemarks, but well outside the border lines, [c.f. BM Satires 9583 for the Humphrey issue],