<iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-PWMWG4" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden">
Apollo

Biting Wit and Brazen Folly: British Satirical Prints, 1780s–1830s

Philadelphia Museum of Art

NOW CLOSED

This exhibition features over 60 British caricatures, produced during a period of popularity for the genre in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Works drawn from the museum’s collection by artists such as George Cruikshank, James Gillray, William Heath, and Thomas Rowlandson cast a mocking eye over various aspects of contemporary British society; the themes of the exhibition progress from gentle parodies of Georgian London’s art-loving cognoscenti, through lampoons of Londoners’ doomed attempts to keep up with the latest fashion fads, and finally, to stark depictions of disease, expressing satirists’ scepticism towards the present state of medical knowledge and skill. Find out more about ‘Biting Wit and Brazen Folly’ from the Philadephia Museum of Art’s website.

Preview the exhibition below | See Apollo’s Picks of the Week here

Italian Picture Dealers Humbuging My Lord Anglaise, Thomas Rowlandson

Italian Picture Dealers Humbuging My Lord Anglaise (1812), Thomas Rowlandson. Courtesy the Philadelphia Museum of Art

A Cognoscenti Contemplating Ye Beauties of Ye Antique, James Gillray

A Cognoscenti Contemplating Ye Beauties of Ye Antique (1801), James Gillray. Courtesy the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Dandy Pickpockets, Diving, Isaac Robert Cruikshank

Dandy Pickpockets, Diving (1818), Isaac Robert Cruikshank. Courtesy the Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Gout, James Gillray

The Gout (1799), James Gillray. Courtesy the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Connoisseurs, Thomas Rowlandson

Connoisseurs (1799), Thomas Rowlandson. Courtesy the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Event website