Symptoms of Crim. Con!!
published February 12, 1819
Medium
Hand-colored etching on paper
Dimensions
Image: 22.5 × 32 cm (8 7/8 × 12 5/8 in.); Sheet cut within platemark: 24.7 × 33 cm (9 3/4 × 13 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
89912
Art Historical Context
Isaac Robert Cruikshank’s *Symptoms of Crim. Con!!*, published in February 1819, offers a lively glimpse into the satirical print culture of Regency-era Britain. As a hand-colored etching, the work belongs to a tradition of affordable, widely circulated imagery that allowed artists to comment on the scandals and social follies of the day. “Crim. Con.” was contemporary shorthand for “criminal conversation,” the legal term for adultery, suggesting the print pokes fun at the telltale signs and consequences of romantic indiscretion. Cruikshank, part of a prominent family of British caricaturists,...