Progress of the Toilet - The Wig - Plate 2

[graphic]
Bibliographic Details
Summary:After James Gillray's 'Progress of the Toilet.-The Wig.-Plate 2', published 26 February 1810 by Hannah Humphrey, 27 St James's Street, London; see BM Satires 11609. Lettered with title underneath image, "Progress of the Toilet - The Wig - Plate 2”, this hand-coloured etching lacks publication details. Social satire featuring the depiction of a woman (whose hair is very tightly cropped), who sits facing her reflection in a full length mirror; she wears a pair of red coloured slippers, a dress of plain muslin with long sleeves and holds an open book, the word 'Delphine' is visible at the top of the pages. ['Delphine' was a controversial epistolary novel by Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein, that examined women's status and their limited freedom in an aristocratic society; following its' publication, Napoleon exiled the author for the political views expressed in it]. Her maid stands behind her, holding a wig of brown curls which she is about to place on her mistress's head. On an adjacent table is an open box that has a label on the inside that reads 'Ross's Elastic Wigs', a bottle labelled 'Huile Antique', two small combs and a small hair-brush. On a chair beside the table is a large cylindrical bonnet and hung over the back of the chair is a cloak; on the carpet underneath the chair is an open music score, entitled ‘Opera Dances’. A small foot-stool and pan-pipes lie close by. In the left foreground is an open trunk with some linen hanging out over the edge of it; a small dog is asleep in front of it on top of a foot- stool. Beside this is a dressing-table with several containers and bottles on it - the labels of the bottles are visible - 'Honey Water', 'Eau de Cologne', 'Otto de Rose', and 'Esprit de [...]. Against the back wall of the room is an ornate sideboard, supported on pilasters like a chimney-piece. On it are a vase of flowers, various containers and a pottinger. Above this on the wall hangs a small bookcase. It is open, with volumes with spine titles partially visible - 'Tales of Wonder' [a controversial 1801 publication by Gothic writer Matthew Gregory Lewis, nicknamed ‘Tales of Plunder’ by contemporaries]; 'Measure [?] Fashionables'; two volumes with the spine title 'Faublais' ['Les Amours du chevalier de Faublas' were darkly comic novel-memoirs published in three parts from 1787 to 1790 by Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai, recounting the love affairs of a libertine and sometime transvestite]; 'Uncle Thoma[s]' and 'Rosa Matilda' [the pseudonym of novelist Charlotte Dacre, who wrote Gothic novels]. Beside this, a framed picture on the wall depicts a lady walking in a landscape, holding a parasol; it is entitled 'Noon'.
In collection: Collection of caricatures, mainly set in Dublin
Format: Prints & Drawings
Language:English
Published / Created: [S.l. : s.n., n.d., ca. 1810-1820?].
Subjects:
Notes:Physical description: 1 print : hand coloured etching, image 25.2 x 19.2 cm., plate mark 28.2 x 21 cm., on sheet 38.1 x 25.5 cm..