The Peace Society, or a New "Field of Action" for the Military - in "The Good Time Coming" from George Cruikshank's Steel Etchings to The Comic Almanacks: 1835-1853 (top)
1852, printed c. 1880
Medium
Two steel etchings in black on cream India paper, laid down on off-white card (chine collé)
Dimensions
Primary support: 20 × 16.3 cm (7 7/8 × 6 7/16 in.); Secondary support: 34.4 × 25.2 cm (13 9/16 × 9 15/16 in.)
Classification
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
222563
Art Historical Context
George Cruikshank's *The Peace Society, or New "Field of Action for the Military - in "The Good Time"* (1852) is a witty satirical print from his contributions to *The Comic Alman*, a popular Victorian humorous annual spanning 1835–1853. As a leading British caricaturist and social commentator, Cruikshank the era's Peace Society—an anti-war movement advocating pacifism—by imagining idle soldiers repurposed as farm laborers in a utopian "good time coming." Created amid debates over military reform and disarmament in mid-19th-century Britain, the work reflects Cruikshank's sharp eye for societal...
About the Artist
George Cruikshank · 1792–1878
George Cruikshank (1792–1878) was born in London on 27 September 1792, the son of Scottish caricaturist Isaac Cruikshank and Mary MacNaughton. His older brother, Isaac Robert Cruikshank, was also a caricaturist and illustrator, while his sister Eliza worked as a designer. From a young age, Cruikshank assisted his father in the studio, contributing titles, backgrounds, and lettering to cartoons by ...