Global Encounters and the Archives: Britain’s Empire in the Age of Horace Walpole
Item
The Court at Brighton a Chinese!!, March 1816
Title
The Court at Brighton a Chinese!!, March 1816
Description
Cruikshank's print imagines the regent (seated center) and his entourage as a (stereotyped) "Chinese" court. Cozied up to the regent is Lady Hertford (a close friend), who makes a "cuckold" sign above her husband Lord Hertford's head. (The latter is the nephew of General Henry Seymour Conway.) Although focused on the "Chinese," the print also nods to the much-caricatured Saartjie Baartman, in the form of the background figure occupying the left pedestal, labeled "Regency Taste." (Baartman was a Koi Koi woman from what is today South Africa, taken to England and France, where she was exhibited and, after her death, brutally dissected and displayed by French scientist Georges Cuvier). Catalog Record
Contributor
Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University Library
Creator
George Cruikshank
