2-871-255 - Shirley Markham Collection/Heritage Images

Reading the Will, c1780-1825. 'Here is a brilliant example of Rowlandson's genius at capturing human emotions. This scene...becomes a humorous study of variously affected would-be inheritors, as the family lawyer reads the will over the remains of the now forgotten relative. We have the outraged individual...whom the parson is vainly trying to pacify,...the young lady...who has fainted...the eaves-dropper in the background, who looks upon the close relatives grouped around the bewildered widow. In the center, the young and perhaps undeserving principal inheritor, completely ignored by the rest, gives vent to his feelings at sudden good fortune, admired only by his perplexed canine friends'. From "The Watercolour Drawings of Thomas Rowlandson from the Albert H. Wiggin Collection in the Boston Public Library" with commentary by Arthur W. Heintzelman. [Watson-Guptill Publications, Inc., New York, 1947]