Gillray's Works
Print Output
One of the goals of this site is to allow students of Gillray to get a better understanding of his development and productivity. The table below, then, lists the number of prints he produced during his career—in most cases year by year. It also shows how the center of gravity shifted from political to social caricatures in any given year, but especially towards the end of his career.
© National Portrait Gallery, London
In dividing his work into political and social/personal satire, and assigning any given print to one category or another, I am simply following M. Dorothy George's decisions in the British Museum Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires. Her decisions are, of course, judgment calls and one could argue that any given print would be better characterized as social rather than political, or vice versa. But there is no one who knew the territory better than she, so I have deferred to her judgment.
She did not, however, include non-satiric prints like The Nancy Packet or Remembrance.These "serious" works I have therefore included in the "Other" column and they contribute to his total output. I have also created an additional column called "Portrait Caricature." Gillray is, of course, best known for his graphic commentary on the political and social scene. These are nearly always dramatic scenes involving multiple figures. But Gilray is also one of the most polished and innovative creators of what I have elsewhere called "portrait caricature" where the focus is most often on a single figure and where the intent is to "define" that figure in graphic form, to sum them up. But ever the satirist, Gillray often combines a brilliantly executed caricature of his subjects with a highly elaborated context that provides additional defining (and usually damning) details. This column, then, is meant to call attention to the number of prints (whether they are classified as political or social) that Gillray devoted to portrait caricature.
I have also included a link here to the opening and closing dates of the parliamentary sessions while Gillray was actively producing prints so that you can see to what extent his production of political and social caricatures coincides with sessions and recesses.
© Trustees of the British Museum
| Years | Total Output | Political Caricature |
Social Caricature |
Portrait Caricature |
Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1775-79 | 18 | 5 | 13 | 1 | 0 |
| 1780 | 22 | 10 | 10 | 5 | 2 |
| 1781 | 13 | 3 | 9 | 4 | 1 |
| 1782 | 50 | 35 | 15 | 5 | 0 |
| 1783 | 25 | 20 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
| 1784 | 12 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 6 |
| 1785 | 7 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| 1786 | 14 | 5 | 8 | 0 | 1 |
| 1787 | 20 | 17 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 1788 | 41 | 34 | 6 | 0 | 1 |
| 1789 | 21 | 15 | 5 | 4 | 1 |
| 1790 | 10 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 0 |
| 1791 | 44 | 25 | 19 | 15 | 0 |
| 1792 | 42 | 28 | 13 | 5 | 1 |
| 1793 | 24 | 21 | 4 | 1 | 0 |
| 1794 | 25 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 16 |
| 1795 | 54 | 39 | 14 | 16 | 1 |
| 1796 | 69 | 50 | 19 | 6 | 0 |
| 1797 | 44 | 25 | 19 | 9 | 0 |
| 1798 | 60 | 54 | 5 | 17 | 1 |
| 1799 | 49 | 37 | 11 | 16 | 1 |
| 1800 | 34 | 8 | 26 | 8 | 0 |
| 1801 | 28 | 8 | 20 | 8 | 0 |
| 1802 | 25 | 7 | 18 | 11 | 0 |
| 1803 | 36 | 22 | 14 | 11 | 0 |
| 1804 | 20 | 9 | 11 | 2 | 0 |
| 1805 | 24 | 12 | 12 | 0 | 0 |
| 1806 | 31 | 23 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 1807 | 20 | 13 | 7 | 3 | 0 |
| 1808 | 20 | 12 | 8 | 1 | 0 |
| 1809 | 23 | 16 | 7 | 5 | 0 |
| 1810 | 17 | 1 | 16 | 2 | 0 |
| 1811+ | 4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
| TOTAL | 957 | 571 | 348 | 172 | 38 |