A sphere, projecting against a plane, James Gillray, 1792

Pitt, very thin, stands rigidly erect in profile to the right. Mrs. Hobart, immensely fat, completely fills a globe which stands on a rectangular platform on castors, and whose circumference rests against pitt's post-like person. She looks up at him expectantly; he stares over her head with a pained expression. Beneath the title is etched: 'definitions from euclid. Def: ist b: 4th. A sphere, is a figure bounded by a convex surface; it is the most perfect of all forms; its properties are generated from its centre; and it possesses a larger area than any other figure. - def: 2d b: ist a plane, is a perfectly even & regular surface, it is the most simple of all figures; it has neither the properties of length or of breadth; and when applied ever so closely to a sphere, can only touch its superficies, without being able to enter it - vide. Euclid, illustrated; by the honble mrs circumference. ' 3 january 1792 hand-coloured etching. Date: 1792. Dimensions: Height: 284 mm; Width: 227 mm. Medium: paper. Depicted People: Albinia Hobart, Countess of Buckinghamshire. Collection: British Museum. A sphere, projecting against a plane (BM 1868,0808.6148)