This is one of a group of figures in the upper left corner of Gillray's print which parody the paintings produced for Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery. This figure is a parody of King Lear, as he was shown in a painting called King Lear Weeping over the Dead Body of Cordelia commissioned by Boydell from the painter James Barry. This painting is now in the Tate Collection, click here to see a picture of it.

Barry's painting shows the distraught tragic hero of Shakespeare's play on a windswept heath mourning the death of the only daughter who truly loved him; however, taken out of context in Gillray's parody Lear simply looks as though he's having a bad hair day.

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