“A parody of British Museum Satires No. 9752, Gillray’s ‘Dido in Despair!’ The Queen takes the place of Lady Hamilton, in a similar pose but tearing her long black hair with more of rage and less of grief. She wears a bracelet on each arm, one inscribed ‘BB’ (for Bergami), the other ‘MW’ (for Wood). On the floor are gifts to the Queen. Her bare right foot rests on a large cake inscribed ‘MW’ on which are various emblems: a large crown, which she kicks over, busts of Wood, Bergami, Lieut. Hownam, and an unidentified person; also a goat, an ass, and a cat. This stands on a paper: ‘Mr Trifle’s Love to the Q[ueen]’. A huge round of beef is ticketed ‘With Mr Suets Love to the Q–n’; with this is a roll of ‘Cat’s Meat’. A model of a pair of stays enclosed in a glass case stands on two papers: ‘Glass-blower’s Delight’ and ‘O stay my love my Cary dear’. A pair of breeches of metal is ‘For Bat [Bergami] or Cat ad libitum from the Brazier[s]’. Caricatures lie near a pair of slippers inscribed ‘BB’; the uppermost is of Bergami drinking at a table between Wood and the Queen. A book is ‘Catalogue of Fancy Men’. The glass on the dressing-table is topped by a crescent; on it hang miniatures of Bergami and Wood (cf. No. 13858). The table is covered with decanters, one labelled ‘Brandy’ [see British Museum Satires No. 14175], glass, pill-box, and boxes of ‘Rouge’, ‘Brick dust’, and ‘Court Plaister’. The curtains of the bed are fringed with gold and hang from a pelmet. In place of Gillray’s open sash-window is a closed French window; outside is a landscape, with two asses, and a lake (Como) with a sailing-boat.”–British Museum online catalogue.
- Printmaker: Lane, Theodore, 1800-1828, printmaker.
- Title: Dido in despair [graphic].
- Publication: London : Pubd. by G. Humphrey, 27 St. James’s St., April 3rd, 1821.
821.04.03.01
Acquired March 2019
