Britannia Between Scylla and Charybdis
James Gillray (published by Hannah Humphrey (English, c. 1745-1818))
published April 8, 1793
- Medium
- Etching in dark brown, with handcoloring, on cream wove paper
- Classification
- Dimensions
- Image: 27.8 × 35.6 cm (11 × 14 1/16 in.); Plate: 30.3 × 36.4 cm (11 15/16 × 14 3/8 in.); Sheet: 31.1 × 39.3 cm (12 1/4 × 15 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- England
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift of Thomas F. Furness in memory of William McCallin McKee
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
The prolific James Gillray often included Classical nautical references in his contemporary political satires. Around the time of the French Revolution, Gillray depicted the British prime minister William Pitt as the wandering Odysseus, who pilots a small vessel holding the buxom Britannia through a dangerous strait toward the “Haven of Public Happiness.” Pitt attempts to steer between two conflicting forms of government: a whirlpool (Charybdis) on the right, symbolizing the crown and absolute monarchy, and a perilous rock with lurking monster (Scylla) on the left, representing democracy.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
