Peeping Tom

In the caricature above by James Gillray (1796), that's Peeping Tom enjoying the view. The picture is called Lady Godina's Rout--or--Peeping Tom spying out Pope Joan. Lady Godina (note the spelling) is in the center; Pope Joan is the card game these fashionable types are playing. This Peeping Tom may well be a servant whose job it is to trim a candle, or maybe it's to gain a good view.

Gillray specialized in satirizing the political world, especially George III and Napoleon, but he pretty much went after everyone, including mocking the fashions of the time, as with the picture above (for another example, see here). His work was (and is) widely admired across Europe for its daring and perhaps his subtlest caricature, which needs no explaining, is the one below:

The title is Fashionable Contrasts;—or—The Duchess's little Shoe yeilding to the Magnitude of the Duke's Foot (1792). While the explanation itself is interesting (it satirized the sycophancy of the press), the image is so arresting it that transcends it.