What better way to start the New Year than with a picture of a young woman being groped, while four lecherous old goats look on? Throw in a measure of rudery about the French (“A la mode Francois”) and you have it all !
Gratification of the Senses is by Rowlandson and appeared in 1800 and is shown courtesy of the excellent Lewis Walpole Library. The hour is late (11.30 by my reckoning) and a soldier is fondling the breast of the unfortunate young girl. I say unfortunate – she has to put up with not just the feeling (by the soldier) but being sniffed at by an old man with a big beak, ogled at by another one intent on seeing all that there is to see, listened to by another old lech with an ear trumpet, while having her hand licked by another who is enjoying the taste! The five senses have never been so revoltingly displayed! I love it….
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Wise words indeed…
We forgive you for the dig, wish you a Happy New Year and thank you for your most amusing and instructive blog.
P.S.: The groper is wearing a red coat, not a very French thing, is it?
Mmm I think you may have a point.The man ‘with Feeling’ is presumably dressed as an English officer. So that means that the other ‘senses’ are the French? A crude implication that the French are voyeurs, peeping Toms behaving like creeps? It adds an interesting perspective, thanks.
I find it fascinating that 200 years on we can read all sorts of different things into the caricatures. I will continue to trawl the archives but cannot claim to understand all the nuances so thanks for your powers of observation!
I hate to say it, but she doesn’t look as if she minds. Oh, well, each to their own. Happy New Year.
I don’t know if you have ever seen Rowlandson’s pornographic prints – they invariably show a lustful young women forcing poor reluctant gentlemen of advanced years into gratifying HER desires! The men’s faces show shock and horror as they are “encoraged to perform” and I suspect Rowlandson rather liked to suggest that far from being dirty old men they are simply responding to female desires! Not sure I can show any without offending frightening the horses….
I noticed the date is August 1800 so I suppose we were still at war with the French which would make it quite acceptable to take a shot at them and the cruder the better perhaps
It strikes me that we didn’t have to be at war with the French to be extremely rude about them at every opportunity! I do find it a fascinating undercurrent to many of the caricatures in the “Golden Age of Satire” – even though the English looked across the Channel for so many ideas on fashion, food and drink, etiquette etc. We have always loved being rude about our neighbours!
Do you suppose that this has been caused by a sincere belief in our obvious superiority?
Now, now Brian!The sincerity of the belief does not justify such an outrageous suggestion! Surely the “obvious superiority” applies to ALL other nationalities, not just the French…