Inconveniences of a crowded drawing room-

George Cruikshank

Inconveniences of a crowded drawing room-

London, Thomas McLean, August 1^st 1835

Etching

Orignal hand colouring, (rather faded)

250 x 355 mm

£180

The scene is a Drawing-room in the court sense held at the Queen’s House (now Buckingham Palace): the men wear court-suits with gold lace and bag-wigs or uniform; above the doorway appears the lower part of a portrait of the Queen enthroned, with one foot on a footstool. On the right is a portrait of the Prince Regent in hussar uniform standing by a charger. In the doorway, which is the centre of the design, an enormously obese man is jammed against an equally obese woman, their paunches dovetailing; she stands on one toe on his gouty foot. Behind them is the inner room, where heads are seen crammed together. In the foreground an officer steps on a lady’s train (left) slitting her gown. A hussar officer (right), amused at the struggle in the doorway, drives his sabre against a much-distressed lady. He has a moustache, and is perhaps a German in attendance on the Prince of Hesse-Homburg. Behind is another officer, also with a moustache. On the floor lie fans, a shoe-buckle, the bag from a wig, &c.