A print with two images, the first of which is an amorous young couple, enclosed in a garland of fruits and flowers joined at the bottom by a head of a blindfolded cherub on crossed cornucopias of fruit and coin. The second image can be viewed by turning the print upside-down image and shows an older, quarreling couple enclosed by a garland of entwined leafless branches and supported at the bottom by a horned head of a demon. Six lines of verse describing each scene are engraved on the happy couple's side on two goatskins suspended on either side of the image, and on the unhappy couple's side on a skin of an ass and that of a bear, suspended in similar fashion of the sides. The verse on the happy couple's side begins as follows, "When two fond fools together meet, each look gives joy, each kiss is sweet ..." On the unhappy couple's side the verse begins "The nuptials o'er with angry brow the married pair, both peevish grow ..."
Alternative Title:
Unhappy marriage
Description:
Title and imprint from another impression in an Andrew Edmunds sales catalogue (viewed October 2016)., With Carington Bowles series number '33' in lower right corner., Sheet trimmed within plate mark resulting in loss of title and imprint., Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires., Watermark., and Window mounted to 37 x 27 cm.
Publisher:
Printed for Carington Bowles in S. Paul's Churchyard, London
Subject (Topic):
Couples, Courtship, Marriage, and Metamorphic pictures
