Page of Dublures of Characters by GILLRAY, James in the Web Gallery of Art, a searchable image collection and database of European paintings and sculptures (1100-1850)

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Dublures of Characters

1798
Etching and engraving, 235 x 327 mm
Private collection

The Swiss Jean Gaspard Lavater published the Essays on Physiognomy which was translated and illustrated by Fuseli. This publication attempted to bring some order to the contemporary theory that external facial or cranial formation revealed the character. It was a direct parody of Lavater that the greatest London caricaturist, James Gillray designed his plate Dublures of Characters in 1798, alluding to the allegedly sinister revolutionary motives of the radical politician Charles James Fox and his friends in the Whig party by depicting them with their grotesque doubles, the 'Arch Fiend', Judas, or the drunken Silenus.