Four employees of a hatter force their employer into a bath of black dye. One of the journeymen holds a beaver by its tail as it cries "He robbed me of my coat, and blam'd others for it." A young apprentice entering from the right holds out a fish to the beaver. In the foreground a black demon whose speech balloon reads, "Push him through my lads. I'll adopt him as one of my children."
Alternative Title:
Advertising reward proved to be a bad plan, by dipping the master's made black as his man
Description:
Title etched below image., Sheet trimmed to plate mark., Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum., and Watermark: Ruse & Turner 1805.
Publisher:
publisher not identified
Subject (Topic):
Hat industry, People associated with manual labor, Employee-employer relations, Dyes, Demons, Beavers, Gallows, and Irons (Pressing)
A preparatory sketch for an unpublished caricature illustrating a scene in a large Georgian kitchen. In front of the open hearth a bull is roasting on a spit as a large-bottomed man (Grenville) sits beside it basting the meat. The dish beneath it is inscribed 'Broad bottom dripping pan'. Other dishes around the room are labeled as are the pools of fat in the dripping pan; some legible notes include plum pudding and mock turtle
Description:
Title from dealer's description., Signed "J. Gillray" in lower right corner., Date from watermark: Ruse & Turner 1805., Two sheets of paper joined:, One of at least three drawings of similar composition executed by Gillray; other versions of the design are held by the New York Public Library and the Courtauld Institute of Art, London., Formerly mounted on a blue paper backing, now removed with residual spots of mounting paper., and This sketch is mentioned in Broadley and Rose's Napoleon in Caricature 1795-1821, published in 1911. In a footnote to page 280, volume I, it notes that 'amongst Gillray's unfinished sketches for caricatures in possession of the writer [presumably Broadley, a known collector] are two very similar drawings entitled the "Broad Bottom Dripping Pan".'
Subject (Name):
Grenville, William Wyndham Grenville, Baron, 1759-1834
Subject (Topic):
John Bull (Symbolic character), Bulls, Kitchens, Cookery, and Cooking utensils
