The Wolf and the Lamb, c.1819-20 (oil on panel)

On his way to school, a boy and his little dog have been set upon by another boy; a little girl is summoning help from the victim's mother, apparently a widow, in a neighbouring house. The title is the artist's own, which appears on engravings after the work and suggests that the central idea is a physiognomic comparison between a predatory and a meek boy. Contemporaries would have been more likely to spot the similarity between the face of the bully - with its protruding mussel especially shown up by the strict profile view - and that of a fierce animal. The physiognomic drawings of Charles Le Brun (1619-90) in the Louvre include a 'Wolf-Man', with a similar (if rather more pointed) profile and character. Contemporaries might also have read subsidiary narratives from the objects on the floor and the bird-cage and perhaps the similarity in expression between mother and son.