An Italian Peasant

Documentary, Figure Study, Foliage, Italy, Old Age: Women, Village Life

Dimensions

Image Dimensions: 17.8 x 11.6 cm
Support Dimensions: 31.7 x 23.9 cm

The following untitled poem on a separate letterpress page by Lewis Morris accompanies the plate An Italian Peasant:

Toil is the law of life, and its best fruit:
This from the uncaring brute
Divides; ⎯this and the prescient mind whose store
Grows daily more and more.
Toil is the mother of wealth,
The nurse of health;
Toil ‘tis that gives the zest
To well earned rest;
The law of life laid broad and deep
As are the fixed foundations of the sea,
The medicine of grief, the remedy,
Wherefrom Life giveth his beloved sleep.

Lewis Morris.

This photograph, from a series of Italian scenes, was originally taken in either 1885 or 1886 by Roome.