Pie-Us Ecstacy – or Godliness (the Itinerant Preachers) Great Gain November 19, 1825 Thomas Rowlandson British 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
Pie-Us Ecstacy – or Godliness (the Itinerant Preachers) Great Gain November 19, 1825 Thomas Rowlandson British 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.". Pie-Us Ecstacy – or Godliness (the Itinerant Preachers) Great Gain 392817
Size: 2684px × 3423px
Photo credit: © MET/BOT / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords:
