Britannia à la Beardsley

Edward Tennyson Reed

Britannia à la Beardsley

Ink and watercolor on paper,

[1894].

As a humor magazine dedicated to conservative British values, Punch had long attacked Oscar Wilde, J. M. Whistler, and other representatives of the Aesthetic movement. In the 1890s, it deployed its arsenal of ridicule against the decadents. With the arrival of The Yellow Book (1894–1897), it had a prime target and, in the cartoonist E. T. Reed (1860–1933), a master gunner. “Britannia à la Beardsley (By Our ‘Yellow’ Decadent)” appeared in Punch’s Almanack, a yearly supplement, for 1895 (actually issued in December 1894). Reed’s satirical drawing offered standard elements from the iconic Britannia image—the woman warrior with spear and shield and an accompanying British lion—along with additions, such as an English bulldog. All, however, were “Beardsleyized” and rendered effete in ways that referenced the Yellow Book art editor’s characteristic style. Most amusingly, “Mr. Punch,” the magazine’s famous symbol, was feminized and turned into a Beardsleyan dwarf.

From the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press