Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

The accusing spirit which flew up to heavens chancery with the oath : blush'd as he gave it in, and the recording angel as he wrote it down dropt a tear on the word, and blotted it out for ever.

Image not available
James Gillray
1756-1815

The accusing spirit which flew up to heavens chancery with the oath : blush'd as he gave it in, and the recording angel as he wrote it down dropt a tear on the word, and blotted it out for ever.

[London] : Pubd. April 8th, 1791, by H. Humphrey, No. 18 Old Bond Street, [1791]
etching and stipple, hand colored
image: 378 x 286 mm; plate mark: 410 x 296 mm; sheet: 415 x 300 mm
Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987.
1986.207
Notes
By James Gillray.
Caption title from Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy.
At lower right of caption title: Dedicated (without permission) to the Revd. Mr. Peters.
Provenance

From the library of Gordon N. Ray.

Summary

Print shows the Recording Angel with a long scroll, which rests on a small table supported on clouds. He is a sulky-faced naked child, with wide-spread wings and wearing a nightcap. A large tear falls from his right eye. The Accusing Spirit, a bald-headed, elderly man with wings and wearing a long robe, in profile to the right, holds up to the Angel a paper inscribed "He shall not dye by xxx". The winged heads of a man and woman, poised on the claws of birds of prey, rest on clouds in the upper left corner of the design; he regards her insinuatingly, she grins back. A cherub's winged head flies behind the Accusing Spirit.

Associated names
Humphrey, Hannah, active 1774-1817, publisher.
Ray, Gordon Norton, 1915-1986, former owner.
Classification
Department
Century prints