"Very Ill!": The Many Faces of Medical Caricature in Nineteenth-Century England & France

Scope and content:

The 37 caricatures displayed in this exhibit are divided into two groups: English and French. The English prints are predominately drawn by two of the more famous British caricaturists, James Gillray and George Cruikshank. The French caricatures include artwork by J.J. Grandville, Louis-Léopold Boilly, and Edme Jean Pigal.

Mary Wagner donated the caricatures in this exhibit to Historical Collections and Services, The Claude Moore Health Sciences Library. Her husband, the late Robert R. Wagner, M.D., collected these when he was a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institute for Medical Research in London from 1950 to 1951. Wagner was Chair of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Virginia from 1967 to 1994, and Director of the UVa Cancer Center from 1983 to 1993. Thanks to Mary Wagner's generosity, the caricatures recently have been professionally treated, preserved, and reframed. The originals are on display in Historical Collections and Services and in the Department of Microbiology in the Robert R. Wagner Conference Room. These nineteenth-century satirical prints will thus continue to delight future generations.

This exhibit was written by Sara Huyser and Janet Pearson, members of the staff of Historical Collections and Services at the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia. Steve Stedman designed the Web exhibit. Special thanks to Joan Echtenkamp Klein and Andrew Sallans for their assistance.

Access and use