Dido in despair

Gillray, James, 1756-1815 · February 6, 1801

A bedroom scene. Lady Hamilton, grotesquely fat, but with traces of beauty in her features, rises from a curtained bed, arms and one leg extended in a burlesqued gesture of despair. She wears a nightgown and lace-trimmed cap. Behind her in the shadowed depths of the bed the night-capped head of her elderly and (?) sleeping husband, rests on the pillow. She looks, weeping, towards an open sash-window through which is seen a fleet sailing towards the horizon. In the window (left) is a cushioned window seat on which (besides a stocking) is an open book. On one page is a nude woman lying in sensual abandonment. On the right against the curtains of the bed is a dressing-table on which, besides toilet-articles, are a flask of 'Maraschino,' a 'Composing Draught,' and a pot of 'Rouge à la Naples.' On the carpeted floor (right) are objects from Sir W. Hamilton's collection, with an open book. On the right page is a satyr chasing a nymph. They include an oval gem, a figure of a squatting monster, headless, a laughing bust, statues of a Venus and a Satyr, and coins or medals. In front of Lady Hamilton are the slippers she has kicked off and a garter (BM). / A rather exaggerated picture, as far as rotundity goes, of the mistress of the celebrated Nelson. The attributes of the picture allude to circumstances of the life and character of the lady, and to the antiquarian pursuits of her husband. She is said to have sat to the artist for the positions given in the volume known as "Lady Hamilton's Attitude" (Wright/Evans)