"The patient sits in an armchair in profile to the left, in the centre of a well-furnished room. He wears dressing-gown and nightcap, his arms are folded and he stares fixedly, assailed by ghostly visions which float before his eyes, emerging from smoke-like shadows: a skeleton, Death, poised just above him, raises his arrow to smite. A corpse-like half length figure offers him a pistol and a halter. A spectre with webbed wings holds out a cup. Two staring and decapitated heads glare from the shadows which fill the room. A hand raises a sword; a man with a knife is about to be stung by a serpent. A naked body (half length) falls head downwards. Above these spectres is a man (left) driving a hearse (right to left) at full gallop and looking round at the Hypochondriac. Behind the patient a good-looking woman speaks confidentially to a doctor who meditatively sucks his cane. He is dressed in an old-fashioned manner, wearing a tie-wig. A table covered with medicines stands behind the patient, who seems unconscious of the other two. A money-chest beside him suggests that he is miserly. Two landscapes hang on the wall."--British Museum online catalogue, description of an earlier state
Description:
Title etched below image., Reissue, with new imprint statement, of a print published in 1788 by T. Rowlandson. Cf. No. 7449 in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires, v. 6., Sheet trimmed within plate mark., Companion print to: Ague & fever., Nine lines of verse etched below image, on either side of title: The mind distemper'd - say, what potent charm, Can Fancy's spectre - brooding rage disarm? ..., Temporary local Medical Library subject terms: Demons & Devils -- Skeleton as death., and 1 print : etching and aquatint, hand-colored ; sheet 41.2 x 56.9 cm.
Publisher:
Pubd. Novr. 5, 1792, by S.W. Fores, No. 3 Piccadilly
Subject (Topic):
Death (Personification), Hypochondria, Depression, Mental, Suicide, Skeletons, Hearses, Demons, Daggers & swords, Handguns, Physicians, Staffs (Sticks), and Medicines