Catalogue Number
NMLH.2022.272
Object Name
Postcard
Date
1983
Description
Postcard with an image of a painting on the front. The image shows a landscape type background, with a tree and airplane in the background. The front of the image shows a cartoon image of Margaret Thatcher wearing a Union Jack dress. There is a man next to her holding a gun. The reverse of the postcard has publishing information, and a title stating "Steve Bell's Old Masters: No.2. After Mr and Mrs Andrew by Thomas Gainsborough." Steve Bell is a English political cartoonist. His work is usually left-wing, and parodies older traditional paintings by incorporating political figures into them. The painting he is parodying in this postcard is "Mr and Mrs Andrews." The painting began to receive hostile scrutiny as a paradigm of the paternalist and capitalist society of 18th-century England.
