A fat woman (left) sits on the side of her bed, her hand clasped by a lean man wearing clerical bands, who sits beside her, leaning avidly forward. Her breast is immodestly exposed; she throws her eyes up sanctimoniously; on her lap is an open book: 'Pilgrim's Progress Knock and it shall be opened unto you'. The man's foot rests on an open 'Holy Bible The Spirit is willing but the Flesh is weak'; this lies beside his hat. A cat miaows at the pair. To the bed-curtain is pinned a paper: 'Prices at Smithfield Beef. . Veal. . Mutton . . Lamb . . Pork . . '. A paper protrudes from under the pillow: 'Thelypthora' (Madan's work on polygamy, see BMSat 9667, &amp;c). Beside the bed (left) are a bottle, glass, and paper inscribed 'On Regeneration'. On the panelled wall are three framed prints, evidently standard publications of Bowles, but larger than their actual size: 'Hieroglyphics of the Christian' and 'Hieroglyphics of the Natural Man', freely sketched emblematical trees with figures. These are pious and cautionary prints (impressions in 'Caricatures', iii. 52, 53, cf. Catalogue, vi. 215). Next them is the well-known half length print of 'Whitefield' preaching, shown in the window of John Bowles's shop in BMSat 5220. Above the door is a print of the 'Foundling Hospital'.
<p><br>Through a doorway (right) the unsuspecting fat husband is seen amiably nursing an infant, whom he feeds with pap. Above his head is a half length portrait of Albert, evidently an allusion to the complacent husband in Goethe's 'Sorrows of Werther' (or in Reynolds's play, 'Werter'), the subject of a set of prints by Rowlandson after Collings, see BMSat 7055.  c. January 1787 [So dated by Grego.]
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<br>Hand-coloured etching and aquatint
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<p>Print made by: Thomas Rowlandson
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<dl><dd>After: Samuel Collings</dd>
<dd>Published by: Elizabeth Jackson</dd></dl></div>
1787<div style="display: none;">date QS:P571,+1787-00-00T00:00:00Z/9</div>
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