The Grand-Signior retiring.

James Gillray

The Grand-Signior retiring.

Etching

Bohn c. 1850

260 x 350 mm

£120.

Originally published 25th. May 1796

The Prince of Wales, very fat and pompous, in night-cap, dressing-gown, and slippers, walks in profile along a corridor leading from his own door (right), above which are his coronet and feathers, towards that of Lady Jersey, which is wide open and reveals its occupant holding apart the bed-curtains with a gap-toothed grin. Lord Jersey, dwarfish, shambling, and elderly, dressed in nightcap and night-shirt (on which is a ‘J’ with a coronet), stands by the door, holding a candle and pointing to the bed; he raises his night-cap deferentially to the Prince, who says, with contemptuous arrogance, ‘va-t-en’ (see BMSat 8809). The Prince walks on a fringed strip of carpet. On the open door behind Lord Jersey is ‘A [torn] Map of the Road into the Harbour of Jer[sey]’; the islands of ‘Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and [Je]rsey’ are depicted, with a route leading to Jersey