George Cruikshank was a most prolific illustrator and satirical artitist who worked in London. Born into the Cruikshank family of caricaturists and artists, his father Isaac was a well-known engraver and caricaturist who taught him etching, watercolour, and drawing. George was still in his teens when he gained popular success with a series of political caricatures that he created for the periodical, The Scourge, a Monthly Expositor of Imposture and Folly. In the 1820's, Cruikshank began his book illustration career and was made famous for being Charles Dickens's artist for Sketches by Boz (1836) and Oliver Twist (1838).He was the illustrator for The Comic Almanack (1835-54), an annual publication that satirised English society and beliefs by way of caricature, essays and poems.
The Syren and the Philosopher was published in the Comic Almanac in 1850. An amusing put down of the fashionable belief in sirens prevalent in the mid-nineteenth century.
!850
230 x 70 mm.
Etching.
Later hand colour.