A young woman is brought to visit a sick young man in the hope that her love will cure him; relatives and attendants are present. Coloured lithograph by Lafosse after P.-E. Destouches, ca. 1850/1879.

The theme of the patient whose illness is love-sickness, or a symptom of mental disturbance due to unrequited love, has a long history in literature, myth and the fine arts. The many novels, plays, and pictures which include this theme attest its popularity. The French playwright Molière (1622-1673), for instance, wrote a play entitled L'amour médecin (Love is the doctor), which was first performed at Versailles for Louis XIV and his court on 15 September 1665. That play was translated into English, and after being banned twice, was finally performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in 1705. Molière's play features a love-sick young woman who is cured by the love of a man, and that is the more usual pattern, but this 19th-century lithograph reverses the gender-relation and shows a young man who lies sick in bed until he is revived by the presence of a young woman. She has arrived in a carriage (shown on the right) at the insistence of her mother (a widow, dressed in black).

Though less common than the lovesick girl, the story of the lovesick young man also has ancient origins: in Greek history, the physician Erasistratus diagnosed the cause of the sickness of Antiochus, a Syrian prince, by noting that his pulse rate speeded up whenever his stepmother, the queen Stratonice entered the room. The king, Seleucus, gave her in marriage to his son, and they had three children. The story was recorded by the ancient Greek author Lucian (A.D. 120-after A.D. 180), and was fairly well-known in the nineteenth century, mainly owing to the immensely popular opera Stratonice by Etienne Mehul (1792)

Paris : Goupil, Vibert & Cie, Editeurs ; London : E. Gambart, Junin & Co. (Paris : Imp. par Lemercier)

1 print : lithograph, with watercolour ; image 29.6 x 40.6 cm

L'amour médecin. Peint par Destouches. Lith par Lafosse

Wellcome Collection 563331i