Marriage A-la-Mode, Plate VI (BM S,2.79)

Copy of "The Lady's Death" (after the painting by Hogarth in the National Gallery); interior of a City merchant's house near London Bridge with the countess dying in a chair, an execution broadside at her feet indicates that Silvertongue has been hanged for killing her husband; her young child (wearing a leg brace as a result of congenital syphilis) is held up for a last kiss by an old woman, while her father removes her wedding ring; an apothecary berates a simple-minded servant for procuring the laudanum with which the suicide has been effected and a doctor leaves by a door to left; the sparsely decorated room contrasts in every detail with the grand interior of Plate II of the series - chairs are heavy, the floor is bare, the clock is a simple weight-driven wall-clock, the paintings are Dutch peasant subjects, and a set of ledgers indicates that accounts are kept up to date. 1800
Mezzotint with etching