IIn an alcove on the right in an untidy garret, a man in a dressing-gown scratches his head as he writes on a sheet with the title "Poverty, a Poem". In the center of the image his wife is seated as she mends a pair of breeches; at her feet a cat and her kittens are curled up on the man's coat. Under the sleeve of the coat on the floor is an issue of "Grubstreet Journall." She looks to the door on the left where she is confronted by a milkmaid who holds a lengthy tally; the daisies in her bonnet suggest Michaelmas day when bills are due; she also is shown with a yoke across her back. Just inside the doorway a dog snatches the single pork chop from a plate on a chair; the cupboard above the door stands open to show empty shelves. Behind the poet's head is a satirical print showing Alexander Pope thrashing the book-seller Edmund Curll who had published pirated editions of his letters."
Description:
Title and state from Paulson., "Price 3 shillings"--Following imprint., Verse etched below image: Studious he sate, with all his books around, Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound! Plung'd for his sense, but found no bottom there; Then writ, and flounder'd on, in more despair. Dunciad Book I, line III., Sheet trimmed within plate mark., Ms. pencil note in Steevens hand: See Nichols's Book, 3d edit, 235. Repaired losses to corners., and On page 79 in volume 1. Trimmed to: 350 x 397 mm.
A scene in a chamber with the end of canopy bed visible in the background, left. A woman in her undergarments, a candlestick in the foreground positioned suggestively between her legs, reaches out to cover her husband's one good eye as he walks through the front door; behind her, her lover escapes undetected with his clothes over his arm. Outside, through the open door, a servant can be seen leading a horse, with a barn across the yard. To the right of the door, a chamber pot sits on a ladder-back chair with a hat and a fiddle hanging off pegs on the wall above
Alternative Title:
Wife's dream
Description:
Title devised by cataloger., Signed by the artist in lower right., Date supplied by cataloger., and With an extensive inscription on verso, in an unidentified hand, that might represent the original idea for this drawing that was sent to Rowlandson: A woman being catched in her Bedchamber with her Paramour by her husband who had but one Eye. She ran to him, crying aloud that she dream he saw with both’ and therefore, I must know," added the artful Baggage "whether my Dream be fulfill’d - saying this she shut his good Eye which gave her Gallant an opportunity of slipping away unperceived by her husband.
"Husband and wife dressing in a bedroom, the tent-shaped bed-curtains forming a background. The woman is thin and has a mole on her face, the man broad, but their deficiencies are similar. She stands (left), about to raise her shift and adjust false posteriors. A false bust, false teeth, and wig, simulating natural curls, are on the table behind her, on which are also the man's wig and an eye in a tumbler of water. Both are bald. He sits (right) in shirt and breeches, about to put on a pair of stockings with false calves of fleece. Both register sour dissatisfaction with themselves and each other."--British Museum online catalogue, description of an earlier state
Alternative Title:
Persons in wedlock should be properly matched
Description:
Titles from text in French and English below image., Later state, with altered publication line, of no. 13455 in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires, v. 9., Sheet trimmed to plate mark., Print stamped with price: Price 1s., On sheet with watermark: Smith & Allnut 1818., and ounted to: 44.1 x 37.5 cm.
Publisher:
Pub. Jan. 20, 1820 by S.W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly
Subject (Topic):
Spouses, Bedrooms, Baldness, Marriage, Wigs, Dentures, and Artificial eyes
