First line: Fair lady, lay your costly robes aside …
Woodcut image: a scene in a room with two windows and a table with a lighted candle. On the right Death wearing a crown and holding an arrow and hourglass stands next to a lady who is holding her child’s hand. Beside the child stands a gentleman (doctor). On the ground at Death’s feet are a shovel and emblems of power(?).
- Title: The messenger of mortality, or, A dialogue between Death and the lady.
- Publication: [York, England] : Carrall, printer, Walmgate, York, [between 1822 and 1834]
822.00.00.64+
Acquired June 2019
An allegorical print with two tableaux illustrating on the right, the end of a righteous life and on the left the end of the life of a man who made wealth his object of faith. The religious man in bed surrounded by books and against the background of an attractive library, is greeted by the winged figure of Time clutching a scythe and an hourglass. In contrast, the greedy man, his gouty leg wrapped in bandages and resting on a stool, recoils against the figure of a spear-wielding skeleton, upsetting his table.