St. Cecilia

Sometimes a satiric subject simply falls into a satirist's hands. That was certainly the case with Gillray's St. Cecilia.

Lady Cecilia Johnston was a small time society hostess of somewhat autocratic bearing. A self-appointed patron of the arts, she was also an amateur singer and musician. Unfortunately named after St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music, Lady Cecilia and her patronage were easy enough to contrast with the legacy of the "real" St. Cecilia, whose feast day was regularly celebrated with concerts and whose legend inspired poems by Dryden and Pope and music by Purcell and Handel.

To make matters even easier, however, Sir Joshua Reynolds had recently painted a picture of the beautiful and talented singer, Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, as St Cecilia based on an earlier painting of St. Cecilia by Poussin. The painting, which acccording to Reynolds was one of his best, had been made into a print and would have been readily available to Gillray and his audience.

Gillray parodies the Reynold's painting, adopting its general orientation with the seated St. Cecilia at her instrument. But he then substitutes the old and forbidding Lady Cecilia for the young and beautiful Mrs. Sheridan; and a set of (presumably screeching) cats for the two cherubic children in the Reynold's painting. Putting the whole image within an oval frame, Gillray pretends that this is a "serious" portrait of Mrs. Johnson. But contrasted with a genuine saint and a reputed beauty, poor Lady Cecilia's person, performance, and patronage are all effectively satirized.

Sources and Reading

• Commentary from the British Museum on St. Cecilia
• "Lady Cecilia Johnston" from Love Bites

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