At the Opera

This is one half of a paired set of portraits of two of the society women Gillray loved to satirize. This one shows Lady Cecilia Johnson wide-awake in her box at the opera. As a single print, it functions primarily as a portrait caricature of a silly-looking woman with a big nose and a receding chin.

It is not until you pair it with its companion print, At Church showing Lady Albinia Hobart asleep in her pew at church that it becomes satiric. These fashionable ladies are all eyes and ears for opera, the paired prints suggest, but they can't stay awake for the far more important duties of attendance at church.

Lady Cecilia Johnson had been a subject of Gillray's caricature ever since 1780 with the publication of an untitled portrait caricature. His subsequent treatment of her in St. Cecilia (1782), and La Belle Assemblée (1787) both showed her playing musical instruments. In fact, she had a reputation of being one of the finest amateur musicians of her day. So it is not surprising that she is shown here in her box at the opera.

At the Opera is unlikely to have been designed by Gillray himself. From his first caricature of her in 1780 until his last portrait in A Vestal of -93 Gillray consistently portrayed Lady Cecilia as a sour, acerbic-looking woman in keeping with Horace Walpole's description of her as having a mind "that never cultivated any seed but that of wormwood."

The image in At the Opera, on the other hand, is more silly than sour, which suggests that the print is probably based on a sketch by an amateur. That would also help explain the odd-looking gloved hand on her lap, the unnaturally staring eyes, and an opera railing that cuts across the image plane at an impossibly acute angle. Parliament was out of session from June 10,1791 until January 31, 1792, so Gillray had the time to accept commissions from amateurs. This is almost certainly one of them.

Sources and Reading

• Commentary from the British Museum on At the Opera.
• Horace Walpole Correspondence
• Thomas Wright and Joseph Grego, The Works of James Gillray, the Caricaturist; With the History of His Life and Times p. 136.

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