Original antique engraving first published in 1802, This copy is from the Bohn edition of 1851, the last time Gillray's own copper plates were used to make prints.
The print is a satire on the fears and controversies surrounding Edward Jenner's new smallpox vaccination method using cowpox.
The artwork exaggerates the anxieties of the time by depicting people who have received the vaccine sprouting miniature cows and bovine features from various parts of their bodies, such as their noses, arms, and foreheads.
Dr. Edward Jenner(or a figure representing a vaccinator) is shown in the center, administering the vaccine to a frightened woman in the Smallpox and Inoculation Hospital at St Pancras, London.
A boy holds a tub labelled "VACCINE POCK hot from ye COW".
Other patients who have been "vaccinated" are shown undergoing grotesque transformations, with cows emerging from their bodies.
A painting on the background wall depicts a crowd worshipping the Golden Calf, a biblical reference implying that the enthusiasm for the vaccine is misguided and sacrilegious.
Gillray's work was likely based on the sensational claims circulated by the Anti-Vaccine Society, highlighting public distrust and the fears of "mingling animal matter with human flesh". The print remains an iconic image in the history of medicine and the ongoing debate over vaccination.
Edward Jenner was an English physician and scientist who pioneered the concept of vaccines and created the smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine. The terms vaccine and vaccination are derived from Variolae vaccinae, the term devised by Jenner to denote cowpox.
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".
