‘Democratic Leveling: Alliance a la Francoise: or The Union of the Coronet and Clyster-pipe’, 1796

Description

Mounted hand coloured etching, entitled ‘Democratic Leveling; _ Alliance a la Francoise: _ or _ The Union of the Coronet and Clyster-pipe’, designed and etched by James Gillray, and published by H. Humphrey in 1796.

The imagery of pharmacy and medicine is well used in the depiction of general political and social issues portrayed in many caricatures. This caricature depicts Charles James Fox (British politician) and Richard Brinsley Sheridan (playwright and Member of Parliament) performing the wedding ceremony of Lady Lucy Stanhope to Thomas Taylor, an apothecary, before the ‘Shrine of Equality’.

The groom is depicted as an anthropomorphic figure made up of medicinal implements, including medicine bottles, a clyster-pipe, and a pestle and mortar, capped with a bonnet-rouge. The father of the bride, Charles Stanhope (the 3rd Earl Stanhope), standing on the left, guides his daughter towards the breechless bridegroom.

Earl Stanhope is dressed as an ardent sansculotte, without even breeches, and weari