Blank greetings card with envelope featuring:

'The Republican rattle-snake fascinating the Bedford-squirrel' NPG D12547

© National Portrait Gallery, London

by James Gillray, published by Hannah Humphrey

Anthropomorphism, through which Gillray reduced his victims to the form and status of animals chosen to match their personalities, was one of the ultimate tools of caricature. Here the opposition leader, Charles James Fox, appears as a fanged rattlesnake rearing towards a plump squirrel with the head of the Duke of Bedford. Bedford was an ardent Fox devotee. A week before this print was published, in November 1795, he had spoken out at a Whig Club meeting against the anti-radical Treasonable Practices and Seditious Meetings... more

Card size: 125mm x 175mm

Images are printed in their original proportions, within a white border.