The Great Serpent of 1848 by Richard Doyle. 10 x 15 inches. Wood engraving by Swain. Punch 15: 195-96. This vigorous design was Doyle's most celebrated topical cut, in which he comments on the 1848 'year of revolutions' by depicting a sea-serpent with a face parodying that of Liberty in Delacroix's celebrated painting, Liberty Leading the People. Doyle sarcastically unites the HMS Daedalus's 1848 reported sighting of a sea serpent and the political upheaval. The terrified figures in the boat are the deposed rulers, with Louis-Philippe of France in the forefront — this was the very year in which he was exiled to England. The rising sun is a false dawn, and the serpent is of course a monster representing monstrous revolution. In the 'Hungry Forties,' with the rise of Chartism, the fear of revolution was very real in England.
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Image scan and text by Simon Cooke.[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Punch. London: Bradbury & Evans, 1849
Created 23 November 2017
Last modified 7 December 2025