Title: From Sir William Hamilton's Collection
Artist: James Gillray
Publisher: Hannah Humphrey
Date: 1801
Medium: Hand-colored etching on paper
Credit Line: Collection of the John and Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art
Item description: This caricature of Admiral Horatio Nelson gives the subject a vase-shaped body and shows him from behind, standing upon a chipped base inscribed: 'D AM•N•Q V•I•Σ•Σ•Ω•N'. His wig has been turned into the lid. The image was once thought to represent William Hamilton but recent scholarship has convincingly established that it actually shows Nelson, who was a close friend of Hamilton's and became the lover of the latter's wife, Lady Emma Hamilton.
