The Dance of Death: The Last Chase

A skeletal Death rides a phantom horse over a cliff edge, hurling hunters, hounds, and horses into the void below — fox-hunting's aristocratic thrill literalised as mass carnage. The caption reads: Such mortal Sport the Chase attends; / At Break-Neck Hill, the Hunting Ends. Rowlandson's aquatint — acid-bitten lines softened by fluid watercolour washes — gave Georgian satirical prints their characteristic warm, bawdy energy. The mounted figures are plump gentlemen-sportsmen, their class rendered through ruddy excess rather than malice, yet the joke is firmly at their expense: privilege meets its physical consequence. This sheet belongs to the Dance of Death series Rowlandson produced for publisher Ackermann, adapting the medieval danse macabre into social comedy. That fusion of sequential narrative, typed characters, and moral punchline feeds directly into the comic strip tradition.