A sickly young woman sits covered up on a balcony; death (a ghostly skeleton clutching a scythe and an hourglass) is standing next to her; representing tuberculosis. Watercolour by R. Cooper, ca. 1912.

Cooper, Richard Tennant, 1885-1957.

Date:: [1912?]

Reference:: 24009i

Pictures
Online

Available online

Contains: 3 images

View

Whole item(PDF)

Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

You can use this work for any purpose, including commercial uses, without restriction under copyright law. You should also provide attribution to the original work, source and licence. Read more about this licence.

Credit

A sickly young woman sits covered up on a balcony; death (a ghostly skeleton clutching a scythe and an hourglass) is standing next to her; representing tuberculosis. Watercolour by R. Cooper, ca. 1912. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Source: Wellcome Collection.

About this work

Description

Tuberculosis (TB) of bones or lungs is a disease affecting young as well as old, causing exhaustion, fever, wasting and early death. The disease was very common in England around 1912 when Henry S. Wellcome commissioned this allegory of tuberculosis. It shows an emaciated young woman sitting on a balcony overlooking a Swiss or Italian valley. She does not have much more time in which to enjoy the beauty of this world, as Death grips her hand and tells her that it is time for her to depart.

Publication/Creation

[1912?]

Physical description

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache and pencil ; image 41.7 x 45.5 cm

Contributors

Cooper, Richard Tennant, 1885-1957.

Lettering

Terms of use

Reference

Wellcome Collection 24009i

References note

Yubraj Sharma, Spiritual energetics of homoeopathic materia medica, Wembley: Academy of light, 2006, vol. 2, p. 733

Charlotte A. Roberts and Jane E. Buikstra, The bioarchaeology of tuberculosis: a global view on a reemerging disease, Gainesville : University Press of Florida, 2003, p. 220 (reproduced)

Creator/production credits

One of several paintings commissioned by Henry S. Wellcome around 1912 from Richard Cooper, who was then working in Paris. Cooper was educated at Tonbridge and then trained as an artist in Paris before the First World War. In 1914 he joined the British Army and in 1916 was transferred to the Royal Engineers. His obituary in The times says that he worked on camouflage with Solomon J. Solomon RA as well as acting as official war artist for The graphic. After the war he enjoyed a flourishing career as a graphic artist designing posters: he is particularly well known for his advertisements for the London Underground

Exhibitions note

Exhibited in “Diseases: Curse of the past, threat to the future” at Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum, Hildesheim, Germany, 1 October 2021 – 17 July 2022