A Spencer & a Thread-Paper
The ostensible subject of this caricature, according to Draper Hill, is the new overcoat without skirt or tail that was invented by the second Earl Spencer (supposedly on a bet) and worn by the fat man on the left who may, in fact, be a caricature of Spencer.
But what makes it memorable more than two hundred years later is the brilliant contrast of the convex shapes that make up Lord Spencer with the concave shapes of the "thread-paper" man with whom he is walking. According to the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, a thread-paper is a very thin paper used to wrap skeins of thread, but the word was sometimes extended, as here, to indicate an extremely thin person.
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Caricature loves contrasts—tall and short, fat and thin, old and young, ugly and beautiful. But in satiric caricature, especially, there is usually an implicit norm against which the contrasted element is judged. Think of the many beautiful, young ingenues aginst which the vain, old, and ugly women in countless prints by Rowlandson are judged. In A Spencer & a Thread-Paper, however, Gillray refuses to do anything that simple, creating instead a brilliant instance of mutual irony where each figure makes the other look ridiculous.
Sources and Reading
- Commentary from the British Museum on A Spencer & a Thread-Paper
- Draper Hill, The Satirical Etchings of James Gillray, 1976, #26
- "George John Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer," Wikipedia
- Thomas Wright and R.H. Evans, Historical and Descriptive Account of the Caricatures of James Gillray #393
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