A later impression of this print was included in the “Suppressed Plates” of the 1850 Bohn Edition of Gillray’s Works. The present impression is on paper watermarked “E & P” - the same watermark that appears in other Gillray prints from this period (see “Fighting for the dunghill, or, Jack Tar settling Buonaparte” (H. Humphrey, 1798) in the Lewis Walpole Library).
A scandalous print attributed to James Gillray satirising the fashion for women wearing Grecian-style, form-revealing muslim dresses. The print is thought to be aimed at Lady Charlotte Campbell, Lady-in-waiting to Queen Caroline, who said, “[o]ne’s choice of attire is as much a subject of public debate as one’s character; for a woman to seek any distinction invites the judgment of those who would rather see her retire into shadows”.
Satires on women’s fashion in this period are not rare, but here Gillray, with his typical style, imagines further excess by showing an upperclass woman barely dressed with her breasts, legs and buttocks exposed in a loose fitting white muslim dress. She holds a fan - an almost ridiculous accessory intended to demurely conceal her, and in her hair are large feathers.
The woman wears an English development of the Chemise à la Reine popularised by Marie Antoinette in 1783 when a painting by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun was displayed in the Salon de Paris picturing Antoinette in a fine white muslin gown. The Chemise à la Raine emphasised the natural shapes of a woman’s body that were previously concealed under rigidly structured garments. The gown takes its name ‘chemise’ because of its similarity to that undergarment, worn directly against the skin under a set of stays or as a nightgown.
Following its popularity in France the mode quickly crossed the channel. Advertisements in The World of Fashion called women to “Madame Eloise’s on bond street […] to view her exquisite selection of robes à la grecque in muslin and silk, fitted to reveal nature’s own shapes with modesty preserved. Fashions arriving weekly from Paris” (1794). However, the dress was not adopted without scandal. The exaggeration of the garment’s ‘undress’ in this print speaks to concerns that its loose fabric promoted loose morals and immodesty. This concern bore down upon Fanny Burney and is recorded in her diary: “I have seen ladies in a state of undress as if their intention were to appear the ‘Goddess of Nature,’ having done away with such useless aids as modesty and propriety” (The Diary and Letters of Madame D’Arblay, 1786).
The British Museum suggests that the print may be of Lady Charlotte Campbell, daughter of the 5th duke of argyle and Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Caroline. Lady Charlotte Campbell was a popular subject of satire and gossip because of her public position in society and renown as a wit and beauty. Cambell’s wrote: “[o]ne’s choice of attire is as much a subject of public debate as one’s character; for a woman to seek any distinction invites the judgment of those who would rather see her retire into shadows” (1796)
