page_title: George Cruikshank
section_title: Sociopolitical caricatures and illustrations
hierarchical_section_title: George Cruikshank / Sociopolitical caricatures and illustrations
caption_attribution_description: Depicted people&#58; &#32;Louis XVIII and Napoleon II In spite of the "Bears grease" (by which Russian support is meant), the French king Louis XVIII is not able to put on Napoleon's boots. Napoleon's son stands ready to catch the Bourbon crown if it might fall. In the background, a guillotine topped with a liberty cap appears out of the fog.
context_page_description: George Cruikshank was a British caricaturist and book illustrator, praised as the "modern Hogarth" during his life. His book illustrations for his friend Charles Dickens, and many other authors, reached an international audience.
context_section_description: Cruikshank's early career was renowned for his social caricatures of English life for popular publications.
  
  He achieved early success collaborating with William Hone in his political satire The Political House That Jack Built (1819). 
  In the same year he produced the remarkable anti-abolitionist New Union Club. It satirised a dinner party organised by abolitionists with black guests.
  His first major work was Pierce Egan's Life in London (1821) in which the characters Tom and Jerry, two 'men about town' visit various London locations and taverns to enjoy themselves and carouse. This was followed by The Comic Almanack (1835–1853) and Omnibus (1842).
  He gained notoriety with his political prints that attacked the royal family and leading politicians. In 1820 he received a royal bribe of £100 for a pledge "not to caricature His Majesty" (George IV of the United Kingdom) "in any immoral situation". His work included a personification of England named John Bull who was developed from about 1790 in conjunction with other British satirical artists such as James Gillray, and Thomas Rowlandson.
  Cruikshank replaced one of his major influences, James Gillray, as England's most popular satirist. For a generation he delineated Tories, Whigs and Radicals impartially. Satirical material came to him from every public event – wars abroad, the enemies of Britain (he was highly patriotic), the frolic, among other qualities, such as the weird and terrible, in which he excelled. His hostility to enemies of Britain and a crude racism is evident in his illustrations commissioned to accompany William Maxwell's History of the Irish rebellion in 1798 (1845) where his lurid depictions of incidents in the rebellion were characterised by the simian-like portrayal of Irish rebels.  Among the other racially engaged works of Cruikshank there were caricatures about the "legal barbarities" of the Chinese, the subject given by his friend, Dr. W. Gourley, a participant in the ideological battle around the Arrow War, 1856–60.
caption: Old Bumblehead the 18th trying on Napoleon Boots 1823
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