Emma Hamilton ('Dido, in despair!')

1 portrait of Emma Hamilton

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Emma Hamilton ('Dido, in despair!')

by James Gillray, published by Hannah Humphrey
hand-coloured etching and stipple engraving, published 6 February 1801
10 in. x 14 1/8 in. (253 mm x 359 mm) plate size; 10 1/2 in. x 14 3/4 in. (267 mm x 376 mm) paper size
Purchased, 1947
Reference Collection
NPG D13034

Sitterback to top

Artistsback to top

  • James Gillray (1756-1815), Caricaturist. Artist or producer associated with 887 portraits, Sitter in 7 portraits.
  • Hannah Humphrey (circa 1745-1818), Publisher and printseller. Artist or producer associated with 720 portraits, Sitter in 1 portrait.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Cooper, John, Great Britons: The Great Debate, 2002, p. 92 Read entry

    This mockery of Emma Hamilton's classical 'attitudes' was produced as Nelson left England before the Battle of Copenhagen (1801). Emma is fat and blowsy, lamenting her hero's departure as Sir William sleeps. Emma was trying to conceal her pregnancy, to which Sir William, ever the gentleman, was the first in the household to turn a blind eye. The title refers to the desertion of Dido, Queen of Carthage, by her lover, Aeneas.

  • Edited by Lucy Peltz & Louise Stewart, Love Stories: Art, Passion & Tragedy, 2020, p. 155
  • Holmes, Richard, The Romantic Poets and Their Circle, 2013, p. 18
  • Holmes, Richard, Insights: The Romantic Poets and Their Circle, 2005, p. 15
  • Piper, David, The English Face, 1992, p. 191

Placesback to top

Events of 1801back to top

Current affairs

Wlliam Pitt and Lord Castlereagh both resign over the King's refusal to permit the introduction of Catholic emancipation. Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth succeeds Pitt as Prime Minister.
Census records 9 million people living in England and Wales, 5.2 million in Ireland and 1.6 million in Scotland.

Art and science

Radical writer, Amelia Opie publishes her best known novel The Father and the Daughter. Said to have reduced Walter Scott to tears, it went on to enjoy success as an opera and a play.

International

Other members of the First Coalition fighting France with Britain agree to a humiliating peace treaty and Britain fights on alone.
A successful campaign is fought against the French army marooned in Egypt. General Sir Ralph Abercromby leads the troops but is killed in action.
Thomas Jefferson is elected President of the United States.

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