1-237-234 - The London Archives (City of London)/Heritage Images

'The fellow 'prentices at their looms', plate I of Industry and Idleness, 1747; the scene is a Spitalfields silk-weaving shop, London. The industrious apprentice works busily while the idle apprentice has fallen asleep. The master enters, glares at the idle apprentice and threatens him with his stick. A page from Moll Flanders hangs above the head of the idle apprentice. Final state of the plate.