Prints and Drawings Room
View by appointment- Artist
- Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland 1735–1811
- Medium
- Graphite and ink on paper
- Dimensions
- Support: 78 × 161 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased as part of the Oppé Collection with assistance from the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund 1996
- Reference
- T08392
Display caption
These two sketches are typical of the caricatures produced by Nathaniel Dance,
after his retirement from professional portrait painting in the early 1780s. The
type of caricature he produced was closely associated with gentlemen-amateurs.
Here Dance gently satirises the snobbery
and one-upmanship of polite society. A group of portly gentlemen compete to assert their social superiority. Dance, who had inherited
a large fortune, now counted himself
a cut above his artist friends. He became
a Member of Parliament in 1790. Ten years later he was granted a baronetcy, and took the name Holland, after his wife's cousin.
Gallery label, September 2004
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