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Sterne and Death: "And When Death Himself Knocked at My Door"

Thomas Patch British
Subject Laurence Sterne British, born Ireland
[1768]
Not on view
Laurence Sterne here confronts Death–a skeleton holding a spent hour-glass and a crutch. The author rises from a writing table supporting a small model of the Diana of Ephesus, with books by Aristotle and Ovid, and a riding boot, on the floor below. A plan of a fort on the wall refers to the character of Uncle Toby in Tristram Shandy, while a machine consuming books and spitting out text points to charges of plagarism aimed at the writer. In the lower margin a moth hoves over a torch to symbolize life's fragility, near quotations from Tristram Shandy included to clarify the image.

Patch met Sterne in Florence in the winter of 1765 and made this print close to the time of Sterne's death which occurred few weeks after his "A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy" was published in 1768.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Sterne and Death: "And When Death Himself Knocked at My Door"
  • Artist: Thomas Patch (British, Exeter 1725–1782 Florence)
  • Subject: Laurence Sterne (British (born Ireland), 1713–1768)
  • Date: [1768]
  • Medium: Etching
  • Dimensions: Plate: 16 7/16 × 12 1/4 in. (41.7 × 31.1 cm)
    Sheet: 18 1/2 × 12 5/8 in. (47 × 32.1 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: A. Hyatt Mayor Purchase Fund, Marjorie Phelps Starr Bequest, 2013
  • Object Number: 2013.939
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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