Traces of the Hand: Master Drawings from the Collection of Frederic and Lucy S. Herman | January 25, 2013 - May 26, 2013

George Cruikshank
British, 1792 - 1878
A Swarm of English Bees, 1860s
Watercolor, 13 9½16 x 18 1½4 in (34.45 x 46.36 cm) (sheet)
Signature: “G. Cruikshank fect [fecit]”
Inscriptions: At top: “A Swarm of English Bees hiving in the Imperial Carriage!! — Who would have thought it !!! !!! !!!” At bottom: “A Scene at the London Museum, Piccadilly – or a peep at the spoils of Ambition, taken at the Battle of Waterloo being a new tax on John Bull for 1816 &c &c” Balloon texts left to right: “This box contains upwards of 100 articles of solid gold &” “Look at the horses Tommy” “Oh! Mon dear Empreur dis is de shocking sights” “This is one of Napoleon’s shirts Ladies” “You’r prime bang up!!” “Look at Zaber gashes” “Box for the Iron” “Oh! My Frill”
Watermark: J Whatman
Gift of The Frederick and Lucy S. Herman Foundation, 2007.15.27

In A Swarm of English Bees, British caricaturist George Cruikshank lampoons early nineteenth-century British society, which was sometimes identified with a beehive, while punning on Napoleon Bonaparte’s personal emblem of the bee. The bumbling crowd seems to “hive” agitatedly around the object of fascination — Napoleon’s carriage, exhibited in 1816 in the London Museum, also known as Egyptian Hall, at Piccadilly. Collector and explorer William Bullock purchased the carriage in order to create “The Spoils of War” exhibition of objects from the French defeat at Waterloo. The show was a huge financial success for Bullock.¹ For Cruikshank, it presented a potent narrative, ripe for satire. Following the comic tradition of Hogarth, Cruikshank leaves no doubt that polite English decorum has broken down into an unruly popular spectacle.

Cruikshank’s marginal inscriptions and balloon texts suggest the immediacy of speech, with his emphatic phrases and exclamation marks. Two of the quotations are especially amusing and telling: “Oh mon dear Empreur, dis is de shocking sights” from the man with a handkerchief who looks at the bust of Napoleon; and “Oh! My Frill” from the man being trampled by the riotous crowd in the foreground. The laughing figure on the lower right is very likely a self-portrait of the artist, amused by the absurdity of the spectacle.² Cruikshank’s phrase “a peep at the spoils of Ambition” alludes to Napoleon’s downfall, but also refers to social climbing of the overly ambitious, those who will step on each other to get up the social ladder.

Cruikshank was primarily an engraver and illustrator, and, at first glance, this work appears to be a colored etching. It is, however, a meticulously executed watercolor. It is not a preparatory work for a print, since none of the artist’s other preparatory sketches are finished to this degree, and none were fully colored.³ Indeed, this watercolor is an exact copy of one of Cruikshank’s own etchings published in two editions in 1816 and 1835.⁴ This type of drawn reproduction of his own etchings is characteristic of his late work, resulting from his financial difficulties owing to the British banking crisis of 1857.⁵

In deftly and humorously capturing the unruly and socially varied crowd, and their abandonment of propriety, Cruikshank shrewdly characterizes the nature of English society.

Ashley Williams
Elizabeth Broadbent
Mary Haviland

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¹Richard D. Altick, The Shows of London, Cambridge, MA, 1978, 240-241.
²Miles Chappell, Form, Function, and Finesse: Drawings from the Frederick and Lucy S. Herman Foundation, Williamsburg: Joseph and Margaret Muscarelle Museum of Art, 1983, 143.
³Richard A. Vogler, The Graphic Works of George Cruikshank, New York, 1979, ix-x.
⁴The first edition was published by H. Humphrey in 1816, the second by T. McLean in 1835. A.M. Cohn, George Cruikshank: A Catalogue Raisonné, London, 337, No. 1959.
⁵Robert L. Patten, George Cruikshank’s Life, Times, and Art, Vol. 2: 1835-1878, New Brunswick, NJ, 1996, 365.

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Bibliography
Altick, Richard D. The Shows of London. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978.

Atterbury, Paul. “Industry, Power and Social Change.” Steam & Speed: Industry, Transport and Communication. London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 2001.

Bates, William. George Cruikshank: the Artist ,the Humorist, and the Man, with some account of his brother, Robert. London: Houlston and Sons, 1879.

Buchanann-Brown, John. The Book Illustrations of George Cruikshank. Devon, England: Newton Abbot, 1980.

Chappell, Miles, ed. “George Cruikshank.” Form, Function, and Finesse: Drawings from the Frederick and Lucy S. Herman Foundation, catalogue of the exhibition and handlist of the collection. Williamsburg, Virginia: Joseph and Margaret Muscarelle Museum of Art, College of William & Mary, 1983.

Cohn, Albert M. George Cruikshank: A Catalogue Raisonné. No. 1959. London: The Office of The Bookman’s Journal, 1924.

Cruikshank on Paper: Princeton University Library. Ted Stanley Preservation Office, Princeton University Library, 2000.

Feaver, William. George Cruikshank. Exhibition Catalogue, Victoria & Albert Museum, 28-February – 28 April, 1974. London: Arts Council of Great Britian, 1974.

Jones, Michael Wynn. George Cruikshank, His Life and London. London: MacMillan, 1978.

Mays, Ronald. “The Romance of London Theatres.” Program for the Lewisham Hippodrome, no. 3, 1930.

Möller, J. “Cruikshank, George.” Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon bio-bibligraphischer Index A-Z. Band 22: 470-472. München: K.G. Saur, 1999.

Patten, Robert L., ed. George Cruikshank: A Revaluation. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1974.

Patten, Robert L. Cruikshank’s Life, Times, and Art. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1996.

Thackeray, William Makepeace. An Essay on the Genius of George Cruikshank. London: George Redway, 1884.

Vogler, Richard A. Graphic Works of George Cruikshank. New York: Dover Publications, 1979.

Wardroper, John. The Caricatures of George Cruikshank. Boston: D.R. Godine, 1978.

• Drawing
• Figure
• Watercolor
• Europe
• Herman Collection
• British Art

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

• Print Study Gallery Fall 2011 , 9/30/2011 - 12/23/2011
• Traces of the Hand: Master Drawings from the Collection of Frederick and Lucy S. Herman The University of Virginia, McIntire Department of Art , 1/25/2013 - 5/26/2013

This object is a member of the following portfolios: