A woman holds a knife and a book marked "Tragedy." Her gown is trimmed with ermine and torn. The border shows cupids and hearts; one cupid shoots a heart out of a thimble cannon labeled "Love"; another cupid travels with a heart in a hot-air balloon; and another cupid hammers at a cracked heart below a heart on a fishhook labeled "Caught." Charlotte Cushman was a prominent actress in the nineteeth century., Text: Who are you, rampaging stranger / Who upon our sense burst? / Lady Macbeth courting danger / Mid the "murrderrerrs accurrst?" / Cleopatra? Charlotte Cushman? / Or old Hamlet's awful queen? / Or some wild outlandish bushman / Half-way girl and boy between? / Decked as you as with ermine skin and bloody/ dagger, / A pretty waiter-girl you'd make to serve out / Lager., Provenance: McAllister, John A. (John Allister), 1822-1896, collector.
