A sketch from nature [graphic]

"A brothel scene. The fat bawd (left) leans back in an arm-chair in a drunken sleep; the contents of a glass in her right hand pour over a dog; a bottle on the ground at her feet spills its contents. There are three couples of revellers, the three women all pretty; one puts her arms round the neck of a man who waves his hat in one hand while with the other he pours the contents of a punch-bowl on to the sleeping woman's head. Another sits on the knee of a very young military officer while she snatches off the wig of the third man (right), old and ugly, who is dallying with the third young woman. The room is lit by a candle-sconce on the wall (left)."--British Museum online catalogue, description of a later state