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ANTI-FRENCH CARICATURES

Folio (400x285 mm.). Engraved title page, XX leaves of text in Italian and French, and 20 full-page etched plates printed in red. Sewn but unbound. Preserved in a modern cloth box. First and last leaf soiled and stained, some plates loose. Uncut with deckle edges.

First Italian edition of this famous series of satirical etchings directed against the French Revolution and the French occupation of Holland, caricaturing French republican costumes and manners. According to M.D. George, the etchings were executed by James Gillray after designs by David Hess and first published in book form with accompanying text in London in 1796 by Hannah Humphrey under the title Hollandia regenerata.

David Hess was a Swiss writer, artist, and politician. In 1787, he joined a Swiss regiment in the Dutch States Army and witnessed the invasion of Holland and Switzerland by French troops, as well as the establishment of the Batavian and Helvetic Republics. James Gillray was a British caricaturist and printmaker, renowned for his political and social satires.

Italian Union Catalogue, IT\ICCU\LO1E\007979; Lipperheide, Xc 13; Hiler, 429; M.D. George, Catalogue of political and personal satires preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, vol. 7 (1793-1800), nos. 8846-8865.

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