"John Bull offering little Boney fair play" was first published on 2 August 1803. It was produced during the height of the Napoleonic Wars when Great Britain faced a massive looming threat of a French invasion.
The hand-coloured etching depicts a bold standoff across the English Channel:
John Bull is represented as a brawny, bare-chested British sailor. He stands arms akimbo, waist-deep in the English Channel. He appears completely unfazed, confident, and contemptuous of his adversary. Behind him on the British cliffs, a fort proudly flies the Union flag.
"Little Boney" (Napoleon Bonaparte) is positioned on the French coast. His head cautiously peers over a heavily armed triple fortification. He is drawn looking haggard, small, and visibly alarmed while wearing his signature large feathered cocked hat. Speech bubbles highlight the psychological warfare of the era. Napoleon nervously calls out, "I'm a com'ing! I'm a' coming!!!" John Bull aggressively goads him back: "You're a' coming? — You be d-n'd!... I say, Little Boney — why don't you come out?"
In May 1803, the short-lived Peace of Amiens collapsed, and France began gathering a massive invasion fleet along the French coast. This piece was designed to boost British public morale and dismiss fear by showing Britain's readiness to fight.
The "Little Boney" Myth. This period is precisely where the popular historical myth of Napoleon being exceptionally short originated. Gillray was the pioneer of shrinking Napoleon down to Lilliputian, childlike, or non-threatening proportions in his prints to mock French imperial ambitions and ease British public anxiety.
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".
