The discarded Clark, or Eve driven out of Paradice

Charles Williams
The discarded Clark, or Eve driven out of Paradice.
London, S W Fores June 1807
Etching
Original hand colouring
250 x 350 mm
Short neatly repaired tear lower right.
£160
Mrs. Clarke, clasping her hands in a tragic gesture, shrinks away from a well-dressed man who walks towards her with a gesture of angry dismissal. They are on a lawn shaded by trees before a house adjoining a large corner-house in ‘Gloucester Place’, placarded ‘Comision Warehouse’ , but over the door is ‘Removed to Charing Cross’. A plate on the door is inscribed ‘[Cla]rke’. Outside the door four men, small figures in the background, stand in conversation, two officers in cocked hats and two civilians. One of the latter says: "I’ll swear my brother Tom purchased here"; an officer points up at the removal notice. At Mrs. Clarke’s feet are two papers: ‘Thr’o the Greenwood she took her lonely way, and all the world before her – [adapting ‘Paradise Lost’]’, and ‘Thou hast agrim appearance and thy face has a command in it – Shae’ [‘Coriolanus’, iv. vj.
BM 10741