A sickly young woman sits covered up on a balcony; death (a ghostly skeleton clutching a scythe and an hourglass) is standing next to her; representing tuberculosis. Watercolour by R. Cooper, ca. 1912.

Tuberculosis (TB) of bones or lungs is a disease affecting young as well as old, causing exhaustion, fever, wasting and early death. The disease was very common in England around 1912 when Henry S. Wellcome commissioned this allegory of tuberculosis. It shows an emaciated young woman sitting on a balcony overlooking a Swiss or Italian valley. She does not have much more time in which to enjoy the beauty of this world, as Death grips her hand and tells her that it is time for her to depart.

C.

[1912?]

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache and pencil ; image 41.7 x 45.5 cm

Yubraj Sharma, Spiritual energetics of homoeopathic materia medica, Wembley: Academy of light, 2006, vol. 2, p. 733

Charlotte A. Roberts and Jane E. Buikstra, The bioarchaeology of tuberculosis: a global view on a reemerging disease, Gainesville : University Press of Florida, 2003, p. 220 (reproduced)

Copyright was assigned by the artist to the Wellcome organization

Wellcome Library no. 24009i

One of several paintings commissioned by Henry S. Wellcomee around 1912 from Richard Cooper, who was then working in Paris. Cooper was educated at Tonbridge and then trained as an artist in Paris before the First World War. In 1914 he joined the British Army and in 1916 was transferred to the Royal Engineers. His obituary in The times says that he worked on camouflage with Solomon J. Solomon RA as well as acting as official war artist for The graphic. After the war he enjoyed a flourishing career as a graphic artist designing posters: he is particularly well known for his advertisements for the London Underground