Monstrous Craws at a New Coalition Feast

James Gillray

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Queen Charlotte, George, Prince of Wales, and King George III ravenously ladle guineas into their mouths from a bowl marked "John Bull’s Blood." The money falls into bags attached to their necks – the monstrous craws of the title, a term normally applied to the crops of birds. Gillray used the imagery of gluttony to criticize the exorbitant demands on the public purse being made in 1787 by the British royal family. The worse offender was the prince, who sits at center. Parliament recently had granted him £161,000 (about thirteen million dollars today) to pay off debts, and raised his annual income to £60,000. Since the prince’s pouch remains empty, Gillray suggests this largesse will be insufficient. The king and queen, on the other hand, who were notoriously miserly in their living arrangements, are criticized for greedily ladling up coins that they do not actually need into grotesquely distended craws.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art