King Henry IV [graphic]

"George IV, as Falstaff, sits in a high-backed chair with a grotesquely fat Doll Tearsheet (Lady Conyngham) on his knee. He holds a large glass of wine and looks at her with appraising melancholy. She pouts her lips to kiss. Their words are engraved below: Falstaff--hou dost give me flattering busses. Doll Nay, truly; I kiss thee with a constant heart. Fal-I am old, I am old. Doll-I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young boy of them all. --vide Shakspeare ['II Henry IV, II. iv.] Behind (right) stands Bardolph, with the head and nose of Curtis, talking to a lean Mrs. Quickly, who has the unmistakable profile of Lord Conyngham, behind whom a huge antlered stag's head looks down from the wall. Both women wear steeple-crowned hats, but the dress of one is flamboyant and ornate, of the other demure. A man looks in cautiously from the doorway. On the wall is a hanging on which is depicted the Prodigal Son turning his back on trough and swine to receive his father's embrace."--British Museum catalogue