Pie-Us Ecstacy – or Godliness (the Itinerant Preachers) Great Gain
William Huntington|Alexander Beugo|Thomas Rowlandson
November 19, 1825 · Etching · Drawings and Prints
Rowlandson created this grotesque image of greed to condemn false piety. It portrays William Huntington, a wealthy, eccentric Nonconformist preacher who began life as a coal-heaver. He is shown in a state of ecstasy brought on not by a heavenly vision but by thoughts of venison and mulligatawny soup. Verses below parody an epitaph that Huntington wrote in anticipation of his own demise, in which he declared himself to be an unrecognized prophet. Rowlandson’s less complimentary version states: "Here lies W. H. once a heaver of Coals/ but he left his employ, and turned saver of Souls/ And he changed for the better too, fifty times o'er/ For instead of a Coal-cart–he kept Coach and four."
- Artist
- William Huntington|Alexander Beugo|Thomas Rowlandson
- Date
- November 19, 1825
- Medium
- Etching
- Department
- Drawings and Prints
- Credit line
- The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959
