A Pair of Polished Gentlemen
A Pair of Polished Gentlemen features two of the most prominent men about town in 1801: Sir Lumley Skeffington and Colonel Montagu Mathew. Sir Lumley was a reputed paragon of fashion, and had already appeared in Gillray's Half Natural (1799), in so Skiffy Skipt On, With his Wonted Grace (1800), and, a few months before this print appeared, in The Union Club. Colonel Montagu Mathew first appeared in Gillray's How to Ride with Elegance thro' the Streets (1800), and was reportedly one of Sir Lumley's most frequent companions. Notable as one of the "last four-bottle men," he too had been featured by Gillray in The Union Club where he appears thoroughly sloshed while still pouring another drink for Sir Lumley.
© Trustees of the British Museum
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Like many satiric caricatures, the print consists of a metaphor and a pun. Skeffington and Mathew are presented as a visual metaphor—they are simultaneously both gentlemen and boots. And the word "polished" is a pun, applying equally to both though it means different things in the two different contexts. The net effect is to bring men and boots closer to a single identity. And indeed the men appear to be almost completely consumed by their respective boots.
To further illustrate his point, Gillray creates a world where the pair is surrounded with nothing but the paraphernalia associated with the serious maintenance of fashionable boots. This includes a conspicuous Essay on Blacking, a mortar and pestle for grinding and combining ingredients such as "Pine Apple," and "Spirit of Salt," two volumes on "chemistry," brushes, and associated recipes and blacking cakes from other sources. Thomas Wright provides the best commentary on this aspect of the print.
Blacking, it may be remembered, engaged the attention, at one period of our history, of the very highest in the realm. The Prince Regent in person devoted his noble mind to this absorbing study. Brummel and other historical dandies were vastly curious on this point. Much as a man of taste collected works of art, "bucks" who pretended to refinement, accumulated "blacking" in studios set apart for the researches to which their mornings were dedicated.
Sources and Reading
- Commentary from the British Museum on A Pair of Polished Gentlemen.
- "Sir Lumley Skeffington," Wikisource
- "Montague James Mathew," Wikipedia
- Thomas Wright and R.H. Evans, Historical and Descriptive Account of the Caricatures of James Gillray #499
- Thomas Wright and Joseph Grego, The Works of James Gillray, the Caricaturist; With the History of His Life and Times p. 282.
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