(An Illustration to Goldsmith’s ‘The Deserted Village’) A Rural Celebration

James Gillray

(An Illustration to Goldsmith’s ‘The Deserted Village’) A Rural Celebration

(London, Robert Wilkinson June 4^th 1784)

Stipple engravings, printed in sepia

315x390mm

Trimmed to borders, neat marginal repairs

£900

A rare Gillray depicting a  scene from Oliver Goldsmith’s popular poem and satire on depopulation of rural communities The Deserted Village, first published in May 1770

A lushly engraved, minutely finished, semi satiric, oval, sepia stipple.

Peasants dancing under the trees, while another group lounge in the foreground, smoking, eating and drinking. Gillray’s distinctive satirical deliniation of the figures is evident in both plates. In 1783 – 85 Gillray began a period of abstinence from caricature, perhaps feeling that his future and reputation were more secure as a serious artist. However, he never received a major commission. Probably painters preferred to see their work copied by an impersonal hand, not one which added a definite style of its own. By the end of 1785 Gillray had returned to caricature, a move coinciding with the rise to power of William Pitt the Younger.