Enter Cowslip with a Bowl of Cream
Perhaps because of her ample size and notoriety among Gillray's patrons, Lady Albinia Hobart, the Countess of Buckinghamshire after 1793, was one of Gillray's favorite female subjects. She first appeared in La Belle Assemblee along with some of her equally recognizable friends, Lady Cecilia Johnston and Lady Sarah Archer in 1787, then twice in 1791 in Le Derniere Ressourse;-or- Van Buchells Garters and At Church. In 1792, her round profile was the perfect foil to the painfully thin, William Pitt, in A Sphere, Projecting against a Plane and, in the same year, she was among the players featured at the Faro table in Modern Hospitality, or a Friendly Party in High Life.
© National Portrait Gallery, London
She had always been known for her great interest in the theater of the day appearing apparently in a stage version of Fanny Burney's Cecilia in 1784. But she also liked to take to the stage in private theatricals performed in costume with her daughters at the theater of the Margravine of Anspach at Brandenburgh House, mentioned by Gillray on this print (Vide Brandenburgh Theatricals).
There in June of 1795 (providing the impetus for this print), she appeared in the role of Cowslip, the "tall and slender" milk maiden in John O'Keefe's comic opera, The Agreeable Surprise. Indeed, the Morning Post and Fashionable World of June 19th singled her out for special mention, saying "The Countess gave to every point of Cowslip its due force, which was felt and warmly applauded."
The plus sized 58 year old Countess could not have been unaware of the incongruity of playing the young, tall, and slender Cowslip. And in fact she seems to have had a wonderful sense of humor about it. The Morning Post goes on to say that the Countess had evidently studied the actress Mary Wells approach to the role but more than equalled in her delivery of one line: "'if I were a Goddess, give me a roast duck.'"
With that in mind, it's likely that Lady Albinia would have been among the first to buy and appreciate this brilliant portrait caricature.
Sources and Reading
- Commentary from the British Museum on Enter Cowslip with a Bowl of Cream
- Draper Hill, Fashionable Contrasts, 1966, #67
- "Lady Albinia Hobart," Love Bites Exhibition
- Thomas Wright and R.H. Evans, Historical and Descriptive Account of the Caricatures of James Gillray #403
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