Gillray (James)

, Hannah Humphrey, 1808.
one of several caricatures by Gillray after compositions by Rev. John Sneyd, it is also one of a series of seven social satires depicting comical manners and mishaps resulting from the weather. This scene depicts an elderly gentleman, (speculated by various sources as either a self-portrait of Sneyd or one of Gillray, but neither possibility mentioned by M. Dorothy George), slipping on the icy pavement in front of Hannah Humphrey’s print gallery in St James’s Street. He falls hard on his backside, losing his hat and wig, coins and his snuff-box falling from his pocket, but determinedly holding upright a fragile barometer in one hand, drawing the attention of a barking mongrel, but totally unnoticed by four other gentlemen and a street urchin gazing at the display of identifiable Gillray prints in the shop window, while two others study one just inside the door. The location of St James’s Street is also inscribed in the upper washed border..
260 by 195mm (10¼ by 7¾ inches).