Giving up the ghost, or, One too many [graphic] / R. Newton del. ; Rowlandson scul.

[London] : Pubd. June 10 - 1809, by Thos. Tegg, No. 111 Cheapside, [10 June 1809]

1 print : etching ; plate mark 24.8 x 35.2, on sheet 26 x 37 cm

wove paper

From a collection in fourteen volumes compiled by Francis Harvey and dispersed at auction, Sotheby, London, June 1900. Sold at Sotheby, London, 12 March 1919. Bequest of Hugh Dudley Auchincloss to Yale University Library, 1981. Bound by Riviere & Son in three-quarters red morocco with gold tooling and gold lettering on spine.

"A dying man, wearing a tattered shirt, lies stretched on a miserable bed under a casement window, through which looks Death, a skeleton holding up an hour-glass and a javelin which he points menacingly at his victim. A fat doctor (left) sits asleep at the bedside (left) while an undertaker's man, with a coffin on his back, and holding a crêpe-bound mute's wand, enters from the right as if smelling out death. The doctor wears old-fashioned dress, with powdered wig, and has a huge gold-headed cane. Beside him are the words: "I purge I bleed I sweat em, Then if they Die I Lets em"."--British Museum online catalogue, description of later state.

One too many

English

October 17, 2016

Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum, v. 9, no. 12153