Mendoza
Not on view
The famous British boxer Daniel Mendoza appears here in the ring ready to begin. In the preceding years, he had triumphed in twenty-seven matches until January 9, 1788 when he fell to a former mentor, Richard Humphreys, in one of the era's most celebrated confrontations. The present image was published in anticipation of their rematch on May 6, 1788 (that event would be held in a specially constructed building near Stilton and result in a contested decision). Mendoza was 5 feet seven inches tall and 160 pounds, of Jewish-Portugese descent, and adopted a scientific approach to pugilism that compensated for his relatively small size. In this finely aquatinted image Gillray avoids caricature, idealizes the boxer and shows spectators expressing a subtle range of anticipatory emotions (see 59.583 for a 1788 portrait of Humphreys).
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