Original antique engraving by James Gillray. From the Bohn edition of 1851, using Gillray's original copper plates. With later hand colouring.
This well-known print is a prime example of visual humor through extreme contrast and a parody of a geometry lesson from Euclid. The two figures caricatured are the highly contrasting public figures of Prime MinisterWilliam Pitt(the Younger) and the society hostess the HonorableAlbinia Hobart, later Countess of Buckinghamshire.
Gillray used exaggerated physiques to represent the geometric concepts. The tall, exceedingly thin, and rigid William Pitt stands in profile, embodying a flat plane and the heavily obese Mrs. Hobart is entirely enclosed within a globe resting on a trolley. She looks up at Pitt, while he stares stiffly over her head.
The accompanying text beneath the image is a pseudo-Euclidean definition that emphasizes the joke: "A Plane... has neither the Properties of Length or of Breadth; and when applied ever so closely to a Sphere, can only touch its Superficies, without being able to enter it". The print satirized both their physical appearances and the perceived inability of the formidable, outgoing Mrs. Hobart to "penetrate" the emotionally withdrawn and frugal Prime Minister.
Gillray was one of five children, and the only one to survive to maturity. In 1770 he was apprenticed to Harry Ashby, a London writing in engraver, and five years later W. Humphrey published a few of Gillray's illustrations including satirical works. By the time Gillray commenced his career satire was old, but personal caricature was in its infancy. Other exponents in this form of art were soon overshadowed by Gillray's superior craftsmanship. His figures were full of vitality, titillating and reflective of some political crisis or private scandal. As his popularity increased so did demand by the public to see more of his work. In the rapidly changing politics of the late18th century he would produce a plate in twenty-four hours. Although sometimes overlooked his speech bubbles were elaborate and Gillray would spend considerable time composing and redrafting the text.
Between 1791 to 1807 his career continued successfully in association with William and Hannah Humphrey. There after Gillray's health began to suffer. He eventually slipped into madness and died shortly before the Battle of Waterloo on June 1st 1815. Hannah, who had a close relationship with him nursed Gillray through out his final years and following his death the copper plates then formed part of Hannah's estate when she died in 1818. The executor's of Hannah's estate sold Gillray's painstakingly worked plates for there second hand copper weight. Hearing of this, the then publisher, Bohn who had previously expressed an interest in buying the plates set about purchasing them from a variety of different sources. Eventually acquiring over 500. In 1851 Bohn republished the engravings in a large folio volume, "The Works of James Gillray".
