Matrimonial--Harmonics
Description:
In this etching, a married couple negotiates the shared space of the parlour. The woman is playing the piano and singing of woe and troubles (as evident from the titles of her music book) while the nursemaid takes care of the fussy baby. The woman’s husband sits by the fire next to several steaming, serving bowls; he shields his ears from his wife’s music as he reads the paper. Other symbols of discord clutter the room: caged lovebirds in a painting on the wall, a fighting cat and dog, the unattended breakfast table, the sleeping cupid, a thermometer indicating the cold temperature of the room. This accumulation of broken and discordant images signifies that the incompatability between the husband and wife extends beyond the musical realm.
Copyright:
Copyright 2009, Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Accession Number:
2001.116.8
Height (in centimeters):
24
Width (in centimeters):
35
Provenance
James Gillray studied with Bartolozzi, a famous engraver of the time period, when he entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1778. During his early career he provided illustrations for Fielding’s Tom Jones, Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village, and political prints for William Humphrey. He failed to gain any “major commissions, in fact, his already distinctive manner may have made artists wary of trusting him with the transposition of their paintings to stipple-engravings, which demanded the accuracy of the copyist rather than any individual traits of the artist” (W. Feaver, Masters of Caricature53). However, his caricatures gained attention, including attention from those hoping to be caricatured (any publicity is good publicity). For most of his career he lived and worked above his publisher's (Hannah Humphrey's) shop on St. James’s street. The caricatures could be published separately or rented by the album. This particular caricature was released in 1805 on the same day as a companion piece, Matrimonial—Harmonics, and was most likely purchased separately, as this copy was never bound into an album.Exhibition History
No exhibition history identified.Parts Description
One half of a pair of etchings depicting courtship and married life in the context of music.Associated Places
Gillray completed the caricatures at his lodgings with his publisher on St. James’s Street.Associated Texts
Harmony Before Matrimony.Subject
This image depicts the failure of harmony in the marriage previously represented (in its partner print) as a harmonious courtship. Harmony is used as a visual pun in each print to convey first, the appealing fantasy of romance, and then the harsh reality of a marriage originating in such a fantasy.Theme
Young love. Music. Irony.Significance
The domestic unrest in this caricature directly contrasts with the musical and social harmony of its companion piece, Harmony before Matrimony, and serves to highlight several musical and social themes. While the theme might seem like a misogynistic critique of the wife—whose inadequate musical skills, once employed to court, are useless and isolating in a marriage—I argue that Gillray is actually critiquing the system that produces such a woman, not the woman herself. By expecting women of upper middle class and wealthy families to be well-cultured individuals, and then limiting that culture to less-than-useful realms and subjects, it is society itself which creates the inharmonious structure we see depicted here. The husband, though acting irritated, is complicit in this system. His retreat behind the newspaper is an evasive gesture designed to reject any responsibility for the situation, but the viewer knows otherwise: it takes both a cat and a dog to fight. As representatives of a flawed social system which, contrary to the more holistic philosophies of the Romantics, retreats into minutiae and tedium, this husband and wife ask the viewer to rethink his or her own adherence to social harmony. This depiction of the couple argues, I think, for a broader system of education for women that would equip them with an understanding of both harmony and the system of harmonics that produces this harmony (both literally and metaphorically).Function
CaricatureBibliography
Clapp-Itnyre, Alisa. Angelic Airs, Subversive Songs: Music as Social Discourse in the Victorian Novel. Athens: Ohio University Press. 2002.Long Title
James Gillray (Scottish, 1757-1815) Matrimonial-Harmonics 1805. Hand-colored etching. 13 ¾ x 9 1/4 in. Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Gift of the Louis and Annette Kaufman Trust, 2001.116.8.Featured in Exhibit:
From the Collection:
Engraver:
Image Date:
1805