10/15/10

Thomas Rowlandson, The Covent Garden Night Mare

 
Westminster Library and Archives 

 Date: 1784 
Technique: Coloured etching 

This was among the earliest satirical designs to be based on The Nightmare. It shows the famously portly and dissolute Whig politician Charles James Fox (1749-1806) in the role of Fuseli’s maiden, here in a sleep troubled by his gambling debts – referred to by the dice and dicebox on the low table – and the forthcoming election in Westminster. 

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