A Lyoness
Based on an amateur drawing in the British Museum (which I have not seen) A Lyoness is a portrait caricature of the wealthy Jewish matriarch, Polly Lyon de Simons. She would have been 48 years old in 1801.
© Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
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Mrs. Lyon, as she was called, was the daughter of Aaron Goldsmid, a Dutch merchant who came from Amsterdam to London in 1765, and with his eldest son, George, founded the firm of Aaron Goldsmid & Son. Her brother Asher was a diamond merchant and one of the founders of the firm Mocatta & Goldsmid, bullion broker to the Bank of England. Her two other brothers, Abraham and Benjamin, became the largest loan contractors of their day. According to Jane Cox in her book, Old East Enders: A History of the Tower Hamlets, "Among other enterprises, they raised cash from the Netherlands to bail out the spendthrift Prince of Wales." and they were famous for both their wealth and their philanthropy.
As if she needed any addition to her family's wealth, in 1781, Polly married Baron Lyon de Symons, another diamond broker, and a leader of London's Ashkenasi Great Synagogue, where he served as Treasurer in 1790.
But in spite of her formidable family, in this caricature, which must have been created by someone who knew and disliked her, Mrs. Lyon appears with a tiny head (in profile) and frowning face set upon a huge body consisting of two ovals stacked upon one another. Her outlandish, clinging, low-neck dress and plume are more consistent with the fashions of 1796 than 1801 which may be intended as a negative commentary on her fashion sense. But the lack of any other available information about her, apart from this caricature, may also suggest something about the status of women in Jewish culture in 1801 even when they are the wives, daughters, and siblings of prominent men.
Sources and Reading
- Commentary from the British Museum on A Lyoness.
- Jane Cox, Old East Enders: A History of the Tower Hamlets
- The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History ..., Volume 6
- Thomas Wright and R.H. Evans, Historical and Descriptive Account of the Caricatures of James Gillray #507
- Thomas Wright and Joseph Grego, The Works of James Gillray, the Caricaturist; With the History of His Life and Times p. 283-4.
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