Death's triumph over a much loved family man; illustrated by a skeletal death figure pulling the hair of the retreating doctor. Coloured aquatint after T. Rowlandson, 1814, after himself.

[London (101 Strand)] : [R. Ackermann], [1 August 1814]

1 print : aquatint, with watercolour ; image 12.3 x 20.8 cm

No scene so blest in virtue's eyes, as when the man of virtue dies.

In 1814 the humorous artist Thomas Rowlandson started to create a distinctive "English Dance of death": Rowlandson produced watercolours of contemporary scenes showing death, and William Combe (a writer) wrote verses describing the scenes. In addition to Combe's verses, each aquatint is accompanied by a couplet in English verse by an unidentified author, and the aquatints were coloured in watercolour by unkown hands. The combined pictures and texts were published by Rudolph Ackermann from his shop in the Strand, London, at a rate of three prints a month from 1 April 1814 to 1 March 1816

Not found in: British Museum Catalogue of political and personal satires, London 1870-1954

R.R. Wark, Rowlandson's drawings for the English dance of death, California 1966, pl. 15

J.R. Abbey, Life in England in aquatint and lithography 1770-1860, San Francisco 1991, no. 263.

Wellcome Collection 11399i

After: drawing in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California