An emblem of a modern marriage / drawn by M H. from a sketch cut with a diamond on a pane of glass.

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James Gillray
1756-1815
An emblem of a modern marriage / drawn by M H. from a sketch cut with a diamond on a pane of glass.
etching
image: 193 x 190 mm; plate mark: 227 x 207 mm; sheet: 242 x 222 mm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 2296
Published: 
[London] : Publish'd according to act of Parliament June 15, 1775, [1775].
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Notes: 

Attributed to Gillray by Grego.
Title from item.
Publisher not identified.
Two lines of verse from Lord Hervey's "Reply to Hammond's Verses to Miss Dashwood". In: Dodsley's Collection of Poems, iv. 73-8, etched below image: ------no smiles for us the God head wears! / His torch inverted & his face in tears!

Summary: 

Print shows two figures standing side by side: a skeleton (left) wearing a feathered hat, a coat, and sword, a lady (right) holding a cloak round her, and wearing feathers in her hair. She points with her left hand to a rectangular tomb, on which is inscribed "Requiescas in pace" beneath a skull and cross-bones. They are standing on a road which leads to a large country house with a Palladian portico over which is a baron's coronet. In the air a cupid flies away, covering his face with his hand and holding his torch reversed.

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