The Bottle (etchings)

Beginning around 1845, Cruikshank entered into the final "temperance phase" of his career, lasting until his death in 1878.

[1] The first plate in the series depicts a prosperous family- consisting of a husband and wife and three children- enjoying a meal at home.

The husband holds in his hands a bottle of liquor and a glass, and, according to the caption, invites his wife "just to take a drop".

[1] In the second plate, we are told the husband has lost his job, and the family must pawn their clothing to pay for alcohol.

The final scene, set some years later, shows the husband, now "a hopeless maniac", being visited in a mad-house by his surviving son and daughter.

In the first plate, the room is richly furnished with objects indicative of the family's security and respectability, including a painting of a church, an open cupboard stocked with china, a well-fed cat, and a number of figurines over the mantle.

A small crack appears in the wall in the third plate, which widens in later scenes, exposing the building's inner structure.

[6] Cruikshank did not control the copyright for the drawings, which allowed imitations and derivative works to flourish.

Detail from the first of eight plates. A husband holds the titular bottle of liquor, offering his wife a drink. In the following plates, their drinking rapidly leads to poverty, madness, and death.