A New Hat. Zounds! It Pinches Me Like the Very Devil!! 1826

M. Egerton created this hand-colored etching, "A New Hat. Zounds! It Pinches Me Like the Very Devil!!," in London around 1828. The print humorously depicts the woes of keeping up with fashionable society. The target of Egerton's satire is the middle-class man, whose contorted face and awkward posture betray the discomfort caused by his new top hat. The artist is lampooning the pressure to conform to standards of dress and behavior. We see that the man's social aspirations are literally a pain, his suffering underscored by the dog dragging an umbrella, seemingly indifferent to his owner’s plight. Prints like this one found a ready audience among a public eager to laugh at social climbing. They provide us with invaluable insights into the anxieties surrounding status and identity in a rapidly changing society. By studying such images alongside period literature, fashion plates, and social commentaries, we gain a richer understanding of the cultural dynamics of early 19th-century England.