Isaac Cruikshank the Elder after Woodward
A sailor at a quakers funeral
London, Thomas Tegg, ca. 1805
Etching
Original hand colouring
245 x 345 mm
Overal time staining
£180
A Quaker stands by an open grave, with clasped hands, eyes sanctimoniously turned up. A grave-digger leans on his spade watching him with puzzled distaste. The Quaker: "Verily the spirit at length beginneth to move me – Alas! there is no happiness on this side of the grave." A disgruntled sailor (dressed as in BMSat 10894, coat open to show a waistcoat) who stands opposite him asks: "Why then you Lubber, dont you come on this side?" A second Quaker stands behind the first, hands clasped, looking down; on the extreme left. a woman in a Quaker’s bonnet puts her handkerchief to her eyes. Behind the sailor and on the extreme right. is another mourner, also puzzled and unsympathetic. The scene is a large walled graveyard; a skull lies by the open grave, grinning up at the Quaker.
