The corner of a tailor's fitting-room. A hideous and plebeian englishman, fat and short-legged, and wearing a curled brutus wig, looks at his reflection in an elaborately framed wall-mirror crowned with a bonnet-rouge (left). The tailor, a simian monstrosity standing behind him (right), adjusts the sleeve of the coat. The coat (so styled after de bry, see bmsat 9389) has a high collar, is heavily padded, with full sleeves gathered at the shoulders, and is cut back into narrow tails. The boots have long pointed toes, the tops, with high tasselled peaks, projecting in front of the leg far above the knee. He stands on a large volume: 'nouveaux costumes'. The tailor is foppish, though wearing a bonnet-rouge with a long peak, long queue, ungartered stockings, and slippers. A tricolour measuring-tape is draped about him. He says: "a ha! - dere my friend, i fit you to de life! - dere is libertè - no tight aristocrat sleeve, to keep from you do, vat you like! - aha! begar, dere be only want von leetel national cockade to make look quite a la mode de paris!!" john bull answers: "liberty! - quoth'a! - why sound i can't move my arms at all! for all it looks woundy big! - ah! damn your french alamodes, they give a man the same liberty as if he was in the stocks! - give me my old coat again, say i, if it is a little out at the elbows. "
on the wall (right) is visible the left portion of a framed plate of the official costumes of the directory (see bmsat 9196, &c): in six compartments are tiny simian creatures inscribed respectively: 'membre du directo[ire], cornell des anciens, ministre, conseil des 5 cents, juge------, administrat. . '. Beneath is a framed oval containing 'les regles pour les modes'; these end: 'vive la libertè'. A patterned carpet completes the design. 18 november 1799
hand-coloured etching. Date: 1799. Dimensions: Height: 337 mm; Width: 254 mm. Medium: paper. Collection: British Museum. French-Taylor, fitting John Bull-with a "Jean de Bry". (BM 1868,0808.12570)
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