The Pigs Possessed:–or–the Broad Bottom'd Litter Running Headlong into Ye Sea of Perdition

The Pigs Possessed:–or–the Broad Bottom'd Litter Running Headlong into Ye Sea of Perdition

James Gillray

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

King George III appears as an angry farmer driving overfed pigs over a cliff. These pigs have the faces of Whig politicians and have weakened the nation by their greedy pursuit of government posts. Farmer George (the king’s nickname in real life) uses his foot to prod from office the playwright-politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who is clad as a Harlequin. The ousted chief minister, William Grenville, floats in the foreground wearing a yellow suit while resting one trotter on a bill for Catholic Emancipation, the defeat of which helped bring down his ministry. Gillray borrowed his imagery from the Gospel of Mark (5:1-20) where Jesus casts a legion of demons out of a possessed man and into a herd of swine, which then runs into the Sea of Galilee. King George is thus presented as the nation’s savior, and the defeated Whigs as devils.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Pigs Possessed:–or–the Broad Bottom'd Litter Running Headlong into Ye Sea of PerditionThe Pigs Possessed:–or–the Broad Bottom'd Litter Running Headlong into Ye Sea of PerditionThe Pigs Possessed:–or–the Broad Bottom'd Litter Running Headlong into Ye Sea of PerditionThe Pigs Possessed:–or–the Broad Bottom'd Litter Running Headlong into Ye Sea of PerditionThe Pigs Possessed:–or–the Broad Bottom'd Litter Running Headlong into Ye Sea of Perdition

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.