The Brave Tars of the Victory, and the Remains of the Lamented Nelson (1805)

"The Brave Tars of the Victory, and the Remains of the Lamented Nelson". Rudolph Ackerman. London, England. December 9, 1805. Royal Museums Greenwich.

"Broadsides: Caricature and the Navy 1756-1815" notes of this print,

"The fierce loyalty that Nelson inspired among those who served under him was a recurring feature of his posthumous appearance in caricature. In [this print], the result of a fruitful collaboration between George Woodward and Thomas Rowlandson, two tars deal with the death of their hero in a typically bluff and honest manner. The crew of the Victory had insisted on bringing Nelson home themselves, rather than move his body to a faster frigate. Jack, on the right, leans protectively over Nelson's coffin as he reassures his comrade that he will watch over his precious cargo until it arrives safely in England whereupon, he predicts, 'his monument will be erected in the heart of every Briton.' Woodward and Rowlandson's print appeared just days after Nelson's battered flagship finally reached home. 

...By focusing on the no-nonsense actions of Nelson's men, sympathetic caricatures such as [this one] foreground the other icon around which patriotic fervor could coalesce: the ordinary British sailor."

The tar on the left wears black shoes with round white buckles, white stockings, and tan petticoat breeches. His blue jacket is worn open with the top button on his single breasted jacket buttoned back, showing a white waistcoat over a protruding belly. His full-sleeved white shirt is visible under his open cuffs. Around his neck he wears a black handkerchief with the knot tied under his chin. He clutches a red and yellow striped handkerchief in one hand, and holds a black round hat with a large blue rosette in the other. His brown hair is short and curly, white sideburns reaching down to his earlobes.

The tar guarding Nelson (in a nice trunk) on the right is wearing black shoes with round white buckles, white stockings, and blue trousers. His blue jacket is also worn open, with a full sleeved white shirt peeking out of his open cuffs. His neck cloth looks to be striped in two different colors of purple. His brown hair is short and curly, and the round hat sitting on top of the trunk has a blue ribbon with "Victory" around it and a sprig of green stuck in it, making me wonder if the lettered hat band is not representative of a standard practice, but something special done in memory of Nelson, like the tars in this print from 1806.

John Bull Peeping into Brest, 1803

Today's etching is a caricature that I confess I'm selecting mostly because the oversized head and exaggerated features reminds me a lot of Hayao Miyazaki's artistic style, and it's a generally kinda weird image.

"John Bull Peeping into Brest". George Woodward. London, 1803. National Maritime Museum.

Our Brobdingnagian John Bull looks down on the French fleet blockaded into Brest, complete with a teeny tiny Napoleon, who cries "mercy on us what a monster - he'll swallow all my ships at a mouth-ful. I hope he dont see me. John Bull himself states, "Upon my word - a very Pretty light Breakfast."

One advantage of John Bull being drawn as a giant is that the image is quite clear about what he's wearing, and the large scale made it easier for a colorist to add details. His striped red trousers alternate between a broad red band and a narrow red stripe. His blue jacket has mariner's cuffs worn unbuttoned with three yellow buttons on the cuff. His blue jacket is worn shut, with five yellow buttons visible. His handkerchief is purple with a pattern of five small yellow spots arranged in an x, a common "spott'd" design created by resist dyeing that was popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries. A similar spott'd handkerchief is worn by a rower in John Singleton Copley's famous 1778 painting Watson and the Shark, and reproductions are available from the retailer Burnley and Trowbridge.

John Bull's brown hair looks almost wiglike, but is worn short and seems somewhat curly. His hat is of the "squashy" type shown in caricatures, with a relatively wide brim, a low crown with a rounded top, and a wide blue hat ribbon with a large blue rosette, facing backwards.