Dropsy Courting Consumption

Thomas Rowlandson|Thomas Tegg

October 25, 1810 · Hand-colored etching · Drawings and Prints

Rowlandson here contrasts fatness and thinness to weave a broad social parody. Two courting couples, embodying four extremes of age and body type, demonstrate the maxim that opposites attract. In the foreground a short obese man has fallen to his knees to declare his devotion to a tall, ematicated woman. The title hints that the two also suffer from opposing ailments, since consumption (tuberculosis) is a wasting disease and dropsy (edema) causes swelling. In the garden behind, the equation is reversed, with an elderly thin man in an old-fashioned suit escorting a plump young girl. The foreground mausoleum, with its heavy rotunda surrounded by slender columns, contributes to the visual game. Finally, a distant statue of Hercules on a pedestal represents the classical ideal that all those present spectacularly fail to attain.

Artist

Thomas Rowlandson|Thomas Tegg

Date

October 25, 1810

Medium

Hand-colored etching

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959