The vanity of human life

printed text

Broadsheet: 3 large woodcut blocks illustrations and verses

 

  • Title: The vanity of human life. : Life and death contrasted, or, An essay on man. Messenger of mortality, or, Death and the lady.
  • Publication: [London] : Printed & sold by J. Catnach, No. 2, Monmouth-Court, 7 Dials, London, [1820s?]

Catalog Record

820.00.00.115+

Acquired November 2022

A harlots progress. Plate VI

description belowA copy in reverse of William Hogarth’s Plate 6 of A harlot’s progress: A dilapidated room with Moll Hackabout’s friends, mostly prostitutes, gathered around her open coffin, several of them weeping; one young woman stands with her back to the scene as she gazes at herself in the mirror. On the right, a clergyman spills his brandy as he surreptitiously gropes beneath a woman’s skirt; Moll’s serving woman, standing at the coffin with a wine bottle and glass in hand scowls at the pair. Under the window and to the left, the undertaker flirts with a pretty young prostitute who picks a handkerchief from his pocket. In the foreground Moll’s small son plays with a spinning top. Sprigs of yew (rosemary?) decorate her coffin; a plate of yew rests on the floor at the parson’s feet, another spring at her son’s feet.

  • Title: A harlots progress. Plate VI [graphic] : Her funeral properly attended = Pompe de ses funérailles / invented & painted by Wm. Hogarth.
  • Publication: [London] : [publisher not identified], [not before 25 March 1768]

Catalog Record

Hogarth 768.03.25.14+ Box 210

Acquired December 2019

 

A harlot’s progress. Plate V

description belowA copy in reverse of William Hogarth’s Plate 5 of A harlot’s progress: In a squalid room Moll Hackabout, wrapped in a sheet, is dying while two doctors (Richard Rock and Jean Misaubin) argue over their remedies. Her serving-woman reaches out to them in alarm to get their attention for the invalid, while another woman rifles through Moll’s portmanteau (with her initials as in Plate 1). A small boy knelling next to Moll’s chair scratches his head as he turns a joint of meat roasting in front of the fire while a pot overflows on the grate. An over-turned table with an advertisement “Practical scheme … ‘Anodyne” litters the floor in the foreground.

  • Title: A harlot’s progress. Plate V [graphic] : In a high salivation at the point of death = Elle meurt en passant par le grand-reméde / invented & painted by Wm. Hogarth.
  • Publication: [London] : [publisher not identified], [not before 25 March 1768]

Catalog Record

Hogarth 768.03.25.13+ Box 210

Acquired December 2019

The horrid torture of impalment ….

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A punishment meted out to runaway slaves in Dutch Surinam as recorded by Stedman.

  • PrintmakerElmes, William, active 1797-1820, printmaker.
  • TitleThe horrid torture of impalment [sic] alive as a punishment on runaway slaves [graphic] / Wm. E.
  • PublicationLondon : Pub. by Thos. Tegg, Sep. 9, 1808.

Catalog Record & Digital Collection

808.09.09.01

Acquired July 2016

Painting after life

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First image, ‘Painting after life’ shows a skeleton (death) seated before an easel painting a portrait of the obese old man seated opposite and holding a cane. The subject is seated against a blank screen; a portfolio of other works is leaning against the screen. Beside the ‘artist’ is a box of paints and artist supplies.
Second image, ‘Death staring shipwrecked sailors in the face!!!’, shows a skeleton (right) seated on a rock with his head resting in his hands, elbows on his knees as he stares at two shipwrecked sailors (left) on a beach.

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On the verso: an autograph letter from Ebenezer Gerard in Liverpool to Samuel Taylor Liverpool, dated 1826 February 5, in reference to “Prose by a poet” (by Montgomery James) which he compares to his own efforts since his illness, with the address incorporating watercolor and rebus material.

  • Creator :Gerard, E. (Ebenezer).
  • TitlePainting after life [graphic] / E. Gerard pinxt. 19 Parker Street ; Death staring shipwrecked sailors in the face!!! / E. Gerard.

Catalog Record & Digital Collection

826.02.05.01

Acquired July 2015

[The little gray man]

[The little gray man]

Verso: [The little gray man]

Wash drawing showing “The Little Gray Man” on his gibbet-wheel as a monkey seated on the chest of a corpse with the pair of dying lovers, Leopold and Mary-Ann, below. Written on the verso, in ink, three verses from the Matthew Gregory Lewis’s “Tales of Wonder The Little gray man” published in 1801.

  • Author: Greatheed, Bertie, 1781-1804, artsit.
  • Title: [The little gray man] / BG [monogram] 1801.
  • Executed: [England, 1801]

View Catalog Record

Acquired September, 2011 by the Lewis Walpole Library.