A Bravura Air, Mandane (G. 9765)

Details

James Gillray (1756-1815)
A Bravura Air, Mandane (G. 9765)
etching with hand colouring, 1801, on wove paper, published by H. Humphrey, London; and The Pic Nic Orchestra, etching with hand colouring by the same hand, 1802
P. 360 x 253 mm., S. 490 x 346 mm. (2)

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Lot Essay

The subject of this etching is Mrs Billington, whose return to the London stage in 1801 had caused a sensation. Gillray satirizes her first performance at Covent Garden in the part of Mandane in Arne's opera Artaxerxes, with her 'inelegant attitude of pressing her hands against her bosom in passages that require exertion. It never fails to communicate ides of labour, struggle and pain' (Secret History of the Green Room, ii. 75)

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