Midas, Transmuting All into Paper

1797

James Gillray

Artist, British, 1757 - 1815

Hannah Humphrey

Publisher, British, c.1745 - 1818

This caricature shows a pink-skinned man with long, spindly arms, widely straddled legs, and a bulbous, potbellied torso blowing scraps of paper with puffed cheeks in this vertical, colored etching. He stands with his body facing us, hands planted near his hips, but he turns his narrow head to our right in profile as he blows out the slips of paper. Tall ass’s ears flank a red crown plastered with more scraps of paper. The papers on the crown and being blown out of the man’s pursed lips all read “one.” The man’s long, pointed nose and rotund cheeks are bright red, and lank, light brown hair brushes his neck. Eyebrows are arched over heavy-lidded eyes. His rounded belly is made up of yellow disks, possibly coins, that also reach up his long, thin neck. A cursive letter “L,” the symbol for a British pound, is written on the belly. A padlock hangs from a chain around his neck, bearing the words, “Power of securing Public Credit.” His long fingers hook around either side of his torso. A yellow skeleton key with a tag reading, “Key of Public Property” hangs from his left pinky finger, to our right. His arms are covered in blue sleeves with yellow buttons at the cuffs, and a scarlet-red cloak with yellow epaulets hangs over his arms and swirls around his shins. His feet are planted wide and he wears parchment-colored, knee-length britches, light blue stockings, and black shoes with buckles. He straddles a miniature view into a building labeled the “BANK OF ENGLAND,” where coins and slips of paper rain down from the ceiling. Tiny in scale, about two dozen men wearing dark hats and coats in brown, blue, red, or green look up and gesture toward the ceiling. At the center of the room is a domed structure about the height of the men. To our left of the main caricatured man and near his leg, five heads emerge from a bank of reedy grass. Each head has a red cap, and a white speech bubble angling from each mouth reads, “Midas has Ears.” Beyond the grass and heads, turquoise water leads back to a shoreline with a sign reading “BREST” and a flag striped horizontally with red, white, and blue. To our right, near the man’s waist, three miniature, light-skinned men with round faces and paunchy bellies float around a banner. Cloaks affixed around their necks flutter around their otherwise nude bodies, and they raise their hats high above their heads with one hand. The banner reads, “Prosperous state of British finances and the new plan for diminishing the national debt with hints on the increase of commerce.” The sky above these vignettes has a band of blue clouds. The paper being blown from the man’s mouth fills the upper right corner of the paper but in the upper left, touches of light blue beneath peach-colored dots suggest countless angels or bodies shooting into the sky. Under the border around the printed image, across the bottom, and inscription reads, “MIDAS, Transmuting all into GOLD PAPER,” and the word “GOLD” has been crossed out with overlapping, diagonal lines. The inscription continues below: “History of Midas, The great Midas having dedicated himself to Bacchus, obtained from that Deity, the power of changing all he Touched — Apollo fixed Asses Ears upon his head, for his Ignorance & although he tried to hide his disgrace with a Regal Cap, yet the very Sedges which grew from the Mud of the Pactolus, whispered out his Infamy, whenever they were agitated by the Wind from the opposite Shore __ Vide Ovids Metamorpho,” the last word fading out. In smaller letters, the work is inscribed “Js. Gy. inv & ft” under the lower left corner of the image, and “Pub. March 9th 1797 by H. Humphrey New Bond Street” under the lower right corner.

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    etching with publisher's hand-coloring in watercolor on laid paper

  • Credit Line

    Purchased as an Anonymous Gift

  • Dimensions

    plate: 35.3 × 24.8 cm (13 7/8 × 9 3/4 in.)
    sheet: 40.8 × 29 cm (16 1/16 × 11 7/16 in.)

  • Accession

    2015.49.1

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Wright and Evans 1851, no. 168


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Andrew Edmunds, London); purchased 2015 by NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2018

  • Sense of Humor: Caricature, Satire, and the Comical in Prints and Drawings from Leonardo to the Present, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2018 - 2019.

Bibliography

1851

  • Wright, Thomas and Robert H. Evans. Historical and Descriptive Account of the Caricatures of James Gillray; Comprising a Political and Humorous History of the Latter Part of the Reign of George the Third. London, 1851. Reprint. NY: B. Blom, 1968: no. 168

Inscriptions

lower left in plate: Js. Gy. inv & ft.; lower right in plate: Pub. March 9th 1797 by H. Humphrey New Bond Street; lower center in plate: MIDAS, Transmuting all into GOLD [crossed out] PAPER. / History of Midas, ____ The great Midas having dedicated himself to Bacchus, obtained from that Deity, the power of changing all he Touched / Apollo fixed Asses Ears upon his head, for his Ignorance___ & although he tried to hide his disgrace with a Regal Cap, yet the very Sedges which grew / from the Mud of the Pactolus, whispered out his Infamy, whenever they were agitated by the Wind from the opposite Shore___ Vide Ovids Metamorpho... in image: Power / of securing / Public Credit; Key of Public / Property; Prosperous / State of Britain... ; by later hand, lower right verso in graphite: Kiuress House / 1 11 3 WSMM

Wikidata ID

Q77008471


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