Man-midwives attempting to deliver a monstrous woman representing the Dutch National Convention. Etching attributed to James Gillray, 1796, after David Hess.

[London] : [H. Humphrey?], [1797?]

1 print : etching, printed in sanguine ; platemark 27.6 x 21.8 cm

De Nationale Conventie in barensnood van eene constitutie. Bears number: 19

British Museum, Catalogue of political and personal satires, vol. 7, London 1942, no. 8864

Ernst Eschmann, David Hess (1770-1843): sein Leben und seine Werke, Aarau 1910, pp. 68-72

Accompanied in the series by text from Old Testament selected from a concordance by Hess (Eschmann p. 69), Isaiah XIV, 29: "Her fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent"

Wellcome Collection 723664i

Eschmann p. 70 says that the drawings by Hess were "von dem berühmten englischen Kupferstecher Humphries radiert und in London gedruckt. Zugleich verbesserte er Zeichnungsfehler, hob die characteristischen Elemente des Originals mehr heraus und brachte das Ganze noch durch Schattierung in Haltung". The Harvard catalogue (Hollis plus, 2001) says for that reason that the attribution to Gillray is wrong. Yet as the British Museum catalogue says, in view of the figure-style, it is more reasonable to infer from these words that the drawings were entrusted to Hannah Humphrey to have etched and published, and that Gillray, whose prints she published, did the etching, than to suppose that William Humphrey or Ozias Humphry did the etching in the manner of Gillray