Thomas Rowlandson

Dissolution of Partnership or the Industrious Mrs. Clarke winding up her accounts.

London, Thomas Tegg, Feb. 15^th. 1809

Etching

Original hand colouring

245 x 350 mm

£280

An obese old doctor sits between Mrs Clarke and a thin elderly officer (right), chapeau-bras, sitting grotesquely expectant on the edge of his Easy Chair. The doctor puts a money-bag inscribed 800 into the dress which Mrs. Clarke holds up to receive it, pointing to the officer, one Captain Tuck. From his pocket hangs a paper Doctor Doneover [Donovan] Agent to Old Nick—Deanery 2000, Commissary 1000, Majority 800 Mrs. Clarke (left) sits in a Ricketty Chair; its seat is Morocco Bottom [an allusion to Taylor, see No. 11218]; under her feet are three papers: My admirable angel My Dear dear pretty little darling; My Love my Life I cannot exist without you; Gazzette. She is one of Rowlandson’s pretty meretricious women, and does not resemble Mrs. Clarke. Behind her is a curtained bed, its head inscribed Boudoir; above this hangs a bust profile portrait of Fredirick 2 beneath which a paper is pinned up: List of Candidates for Promotion Sums offered Clav . . . [Clavering, see No. 11247] 2000, Dow. [Dowler, see No 11253]—800, OM [O’Meara, see No. 11258] 300 .. . 200. Beside the bed is an ornate table with decanters and glass, and a paper: Rogues all sing tanta-ra-ra—Blood an Thunder when Whore and Rogue are rent asunder. On the floor is a book, Mrs Clarks Ledger, on which are papers spiked on a file: Promotions paid for. Two quotations from Gay’s ‘Beggars Opera’ complete the design. Above the doctor’s head, on a large scroll, are eight lines beginning:
“Tis Woman that seduces all mankind
Under Tuck’s chair is a paper:
If you mention vice or bribe
Tis so pat to all the tribe—each cries that was levelled at me.