Tom Jones Assisting Molly Seagrim in the Churchyard
After a successful early career in Paris, Loutherbourg relocated to London, where his style evolved to adapt to the new milieu. During this English period he produced more literary-inspired works, including this illustration of a comic and grisly scene from Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1749), wherein Tom and the pregnant Molly Seagrim fend off attackers using bones and other objects readily at hand in the Gothic courtyard.
Artwork Details
- Title: Tom Jones Assisting Molly Seagrim in the Churchyard
- Artist: Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg (French, Strasbourg 1740–1812 London)
- Date: 1775
- Medium: Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, over black chalk underdrawing
- Dimensions: diameter: 12 3/4 in. (32.4 cm)
- Classification: Drawings
- Credit Line: Gift of Joseph Baillio, in honor of Philippe de Montebello, 2008
- Object Number: 2008.423
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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