Gillray, James. “The Slough of Despond”. Original antique engraving by James Gillray. From the Bohn edition of 1851, using Gillray’s original copper plates. With later hand colouring.

“The Slough of Despond” satirises the political downfall of British statesman Charles James Fox following his controversial support of the French Revolution.

The print’s title and imagery are directly borrowed from John Bunyan’s famous 1678 Christian allegory, The Pilgrim’s Progress. In the book, the “Slough of Despond” is a deep, treacherous bog where travelers sink under the weight of their sins, doubts, and despair.

Gillray recontextualises Bunyan’s religious swamp into a political trap for Fox. The artwork features several highly specific satirical details.

He is depicted sunk up to his neck in the dark, foul mire of the slough, completely trapped by his own political choices.

Fox’s hat has fallen off nearby, noticeably adorned with the revolutionary tri-color cockade of France, highlighting his radical sympathies.

Floating in the mud in front of him is a book titled “Gospel of Liberty”. Instead of the Holy Bible, it features the writings of prominent French revolutionary “evangelists,” proving it was his misguided guidebook.

Far in the background, a distant, glowing “Wicket Gate” from Bunyan’s tale is visible, representing the true path of safety that Fox abandoned.

Gillray was one of five children, and the only one to survive to maturity. In 1770 he was apprenticed to Harry Ashby, a London writing in engraver, and five years later W. Humphrey published a few of Gillray’s illustrations including satirical works. By the time Gillray commenced his career satire was old, but personal caricature was in its infancy. Other exponents in this form of art were soon overshadowed by Gillray’s superior craftsmanship.

His figures were full of vitality, titillating and reflective of some political crisis or private scandal. As his popularity increased so did demand by the public to see more of his work. In the rapidly changing politics of the late18th century he would produce a plate in twenty-four hours. Although sometimes overlooked his speech bubbles were elaborate and Gillray would spend considerable time composing and redrafting the text.

Between 1791 to 1807 his career continued successfully in association with William and Hannah Humphrey. There after Gillray’s health began to suffer. He eventually slipped into madness and died shortly before the Battle of Waterloo on June 1st 1815. Hannah, who had a close relationship with him nursed Gillray through out his final years and following his death the copper plates then formed part of Hannah’s estate when she died in 1818.

The executors of Hannah’s estate sold Gillray’s painstakingly worked plates for there second hand copper weight. Hearing of this, the then publisher, Bohn who had previously expressed an interest in buying the plates set about purchasing them from a variety of different sources, eventually acquiring over 500. In 1851 Bohn republished the engravings in a large folio volume, “The Works of James Gillray”.