ABSTRACT
Previous studies of Wesley portraiture have largely avoided examining caricature and satire, considering it to be derogatory to Wesley’s reputation. Yet it was profoundly influential in forming public perceptions of who Wesley was and what he stood for. From the 1770s the satirical print market boomed, although Wesley was less a target than might be expected. While Hogarth satirised Methodists in 1762, the main attack on Wesley himself came (anonymously) in the late 1770s, with later barbs by Thomas Rowlandson and George Cruikshank.
