French Liberty – British Slavery (December 21, 1792, Met-Objekt 4404)
Original title: French Liberty – British Slavery
kurzbeschreibung
On 21 December 1792, James Gillray published the hand-coloured etching French Liberty – British Slavery, which sets two opposed figures side by side: on the left, a man identified by the caption as French Liberty, and on the right, a diner mocked as British Slavery. The print thus addresses both the contemporary view of the French Revolution and British tax policy.
Description
In the left half of the image, an African American man with long hair and a flower-patterned head covering sits on a chair; he holds an onion in his hand and looks upward. Behind him hang a map and documents referring to the French Revolution. On the right, an overweight man with a flushed face, dressed in a blue suit and white gloves, eats a large piece of meat with knife and fork. Above him is a speech bubble complaining about government and taxes. Exaggerated proportions and strong colours dominate the motif.
Context
The print appeared on 21 December 1792, in the midst of the French Revolution, as Britain and France were becoming increasingly hostile. Gillray, one of the most important British caricaturists of his time, juxtaposes the two images to mock French liberty as chaos and the British situation as crushed by the burden of taxes. The fact that the left-hand figure appears as an African American refers to the abolition of slavery in France; the right-hand scene takes up discontent in Britain with the government of William Pitt the Younger.
Impact
The drastic juxtaposition is immediately memorable: the calm, almost melancholic posture of the man on the left stands in sharp contrast to the grotesquely exaggerated meal on the right. The etching draws its satirical force from the swapping of the terms liberty and slavery, which prompts viewers to reflect for themselves on the political conditions.
Technique
Gillray worked with the hand-coloured etching, a process common in the late eighteenth century for political caricatures. The lines are clear and precise; the colours were applied by hand after printing, which gives the sheets their liveliness. At 24.9 x 35.2 cm, the format corresponds to the usual satirical sheets by Gillray, intended for printing and distribution in Britain.
AI-generated description text
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)