Anti-Sacharrites, - or - John Bull and His Family Leaving off the Use of Sugar
Date:
1792
Materials & Techniques:
Etching, hand-colored
Dimensions:
Sheet: 12 3/8 x 15 5/8in. (31.4 x 39.7cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.970
Gallery Label:
On April 2, 1792, William Wilberforce presented a motion in the House of Commons that proposed the gradual abolition of slavery. James Gillray's caricature, published just a few days earlier, cleverly satirizes Wilberforce's gradualist approach by referencing the abolitionists' strategy of abstaining from sugar in order to undermine the financial basis for slavery. Gillray pictures the royal family testing its resolve. George iii, depicted as John Bull, is apparently sipping unsweetened tea, setting an example for the royal couple's six daughters (and, by extension, "to the Masters & Mistresses of Families of Great Britain"). Despite the queen's encouragements, the princesses are seemingly unwilling to let go of sugar, though women, in fact, were at the forefront of the boycotting campaign in Britain. Gallery label for Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and his Worlds (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-09-27 - 2007-12-30)
