Love and dust [graphic]

"A group of cinder-sifters at work on one of the vast laystalls which disgraced the surroundings of London in the 18th century (notably off Tottenham Court Road). A woman of the lowest type, ragged, naked to the waist, holds her sieve, turning her head to her male counterpart, a burly dustman, who helps her by shovelling cinders into her sieve. They grin amorously at each other. She is hideous, stout, and muscular. Two other cinder-sifters kneel on the ground, both are aged crones; one bends over her sieve, the other drinks a glass of gin. In the foreground are the bones of a horse. Behind (left) is the dustman's cart. In the sky a flight of birds (left) are suggestive of carrion crows."--British Museum online catalogue