1863
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Punch, Volume 44, January 10, 1863, p. 15
Tenniel again indulges his love for the theatre in this cartoon, which accompanies a comic dialogue scene titled "The Two Georges." Set in the Elysian Fields, the peaceful but shadowy afterlife of Greek mythology, the sketch posits an unexpected encounter between the ghosts of George Washington, leader of the Continental Army and first President of the independent United States, and King George III, England's monarch from whom America had won its freedom eighty years earlier. Following an awkward mutual recognition, Washington offers New Year's congratulations to King George on the peace and prosperity of Great Britain under the illustrious reign of his granddaughter, Queen Victoria. He then expresses dismay that his beloved United States has followed so different and unhappy a course, falling ever more deeply into obstinate wrangling and sectional discord. Washington speculates that if America had taken its revolution in a series of small doses, as has Britain -- he cites the granting of religious freedom, Parliamentary reform, the abolition of the Corn Laws, and the adoption of Free Trade as examples of significant yet peaceable changes -- his successors "would not now be murdering one another by the thousands."
Washington appears sober and pensive. He is dressed in formal black civilian clothing, as pictured in American artist Gilbert Stuart's "Lansdowne Portrait" of the President, painted in 1796. In contrast, the representation of George III -- although he is shown proudly displaying the Star of the Order of the Garter, the oldest and most prestigious order of chivalry in Great Britain -- nonetheless leans towards caricature. In the King's pose and facial expression, Tenniel may be paying homage to several of his illustrious predecessors: George Cruikshank, one of England's pioneering political cartoonists, whose satirical engravings had chronicled the reign of George III through the eyes of a contemporary; the engraver James Gillray, Cruikshank's contemporary and a frequent critic of the monarchy; and John Leech, Tenniel's mentor and the first principal illustrator for Punch, whose etchings for Beckett's Comic History of England (1847 - 1848) had taken a particularly irreverent view of Britain's past.
Gilbert Stuart. George Washington (the "Lansdowne Portrait"), 1796. Oil on canvas. National Portrait Gallery. |
James Gillray. The King of Brobdingnag |