Miseries of human life [graphic]

"Domestic scene based on Beresford's 'Miseries of Human Life' (1806), illustrating lines which follow the title: 'Getting up early in a cold gloomy morning, and on running down into the breakfast room for warmth and comfort, finding chairs, table, shovel, tongues, poker and fender huddled into the middle of the room. Carpet tossed backward. - floor newly washed, windows wide open. - bees wax brush and ru]bber in one corner - brooms, mops and pails in another - and a dingy Drab on her knees before an empty grate -'. A man arrested at the door of a room disarrayed by cleaning, wearing a dressing gown and with a gouty slippered foot, his hands held out warily in front of him, his teeth clenched together and his nose dripping; at left, kneeling in front of the grate, a stout and grotesque maid scrubbing the floor; a bust portrait of a man above the mantelpiece, looking disapprovingly down on the maid; cat and caged bird at far right."--British Museum online catalogue