James Gillray
Fashionable-jockeyship
Etching
Bohn c. 1850
365 x 265 mm
£120.
Originally published 1st. June 1796
A scene in Lady Jersey’s bedroom. Lady Jersey as an old hag (cf. BMSat 8806) lies in a magnificent bed. Lord Jersey, carrying the Prince of Wales on his back, supports himself by resting his hands on the foot of the bed. The Prince, very fat in his famous Light Horse uniform (see BMSat 8800), wearing helmet, gloves, and spurred boots, and the Garter ribbon, holds Jersey’s scraggy queue in the manner of a rein; he holds up two fingers, saying (as in BMSats 8809, 8816), "Buck! Buck! – how many Horns do I hold up?" Jersey, who is very thin, leers towards the Prince out of the corners of his eyes, saying, "E’en as many as you please!" Both are in profile to the right; the Prince’s eyes are hidden by the brim of his helmet as in BMSat 8816. The Princess’s coronet, with its triple plume, is conspicuous on a circular close-stool (left) which is decorated with a large ‘J’ and earl’s coronet. On the wall above it, in an ornate oval frame, is a picture of Cupid piping to an old sow who dances on her hind-legs. The fringed pelmet of the bed is decorated with earl’s coronets from which spring horns.
