Object Record
Images
Metadata
Title |
Scientific Researches! New Discoveries in Pneumaticks! |
Object Name |
Engraving |
Object ID |
01:11.018 |
Description |
Reads: "Scientific Researches! _ New Discoveries in PNEUMATICKS! _ or an Experimental Lecture on the Powers of Air." No. XIII, May 23 1802 James Gillray (1757-1815) Hand-colored engraving The 18th-century satirist James Gillray pokes fun at popular public demonstrations of new scientific ideas. Sir Humphry Davy and his colleagues were very much in earnest in their desire to understand the nature and properties of various gases (including nitrous oxide, or laughing gas), but in Gillray's hands Davy and colleagues become pranksters and their audience appears equally foolish. An audience of men, women, and children sit in a semicircle around a table. At the table three men stand conducting an experiment. On the right, one holds a smoking bellows. In the middle, a second holds the nose of the third and inserts a tube from retorts into his mouth. An explosion comes from the seat of the third man's pants. On the table are retorts, jars marked "Oxygen" and "Hydrogen," an air-pump with a frog in a glass bell-jar, and a burning pipe. More equipment is visible on shelves through the door at the right. Behind the table the doorway is inscribed "Royal Institution." In the audience an open book is inscribed, "Hints on the nature of Air requir'd for the new French Diving Boat." At the bottom right is "C. Starcke scp.", and at the bottom left is "J. Gillray del." Caricatures include: Sir Humphry Davy (holding the bellows), Thomas Garnett or Thomas Young (conducting experiment), Sir John Coxe Hippisley (breathing gas), and Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumbord (right, with star and ribbon, looking on). |
Artist |
James Gillray |
Date |
May 23 1802 |
Dimensions |
H-9.75 W-13.75 inches |
Material |
Paper, Hand-colored Engraving |
Collection |
Edelstein Collection |
Search Terms |
Caricatures and Cartoons Engraving Experiments Nineteenth century Nitrous oxide Royal Institution of Great Britain Satire Scientists |