[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Victorian Painters —> Daniel Maclise —> Maclise's drawings —> Next]

Commentary

In this informal line composition for Fraser's Magazine (1833), Daniel Maclise captures both the spontaneity and the acute powers of observation of the leading book illustrator and cartoonist of the day, George Cruikshank (1792-1878). Such apparently random objects as the pewter drinking-mug and the profile of a boxer hanging on the wall are, in fact, particular comments upon the great illustrator's well-known combativeness and bibulousness, the later of which he utterly renounced (along with smoking tobacco, "that vile weed") in the mid-1840s and became a devout Temperance advocate.

The portrait by Maclise of Cruikshan sitting sketching on top of a beer barrel . . . probably symbolizes Cruikshank's life while in his prime: a mixture of hard work and parties, often both at once 1 . He is said to have been continually, making portraits on his finger-nails, to be transferred to note-books before washing at night (or next morning); and is further said to have invented, or at least introduced, the false wristband or cuff for artistic purposes. The story that his washerwoman sold these at a handsome profit sounds probable but is unconfirmed.

Cruikshank was vain of his appearance, and is said by some of his contemporaries to have flattered himself in the many self-portraits he introduced into work, hiding particularly the fact that he was a short man. He had a hook nose, bushy whiskers, and hawk eyes; it is probable that the staring eyes of Mauger, sharpening his axe in the Tower, of Fagin in the condemned cell, of the criminal plunging into the Pit, in the Table Book, and of countless other characters throughout his work, are all, in origin, the eyes of George Cruikshank himself, copied out of the mirror.

1 But Cruikshank wrote to Professor William Bates on April 30th, 1873, referring to Maclise's portrait thus: 'I think it right to tell you that Maclise [1806-1870] and I were friends and that I held him in esteem as a worthy man and a great artist; but you will please to observe that the sketch which you allude to was made by him before we became acquainted, and is therefore not only not like me, but represents me doing what I never did in the whole course of my life, that is, making a sketch of anyone. All the characters which I have placed before the public are from the brain after studying and observing Nature — and not from any sketches made on the spot, etc.' It is more probable that Maclise's portrait was a good likeness, but not palatable to Cruikshank's vanity. — McLean, "Cruikshank and Dickens," p. 21.

Reference

McLean, Ruari. George Cruikshank: His Life and Work as a Book Illustrator. English Masters of Black-and-White. London: Art and Technics, 1948.

Last updated 9 July 2017