Facing the Enemy

In this spirited battle of willpower, a ruddy-faced carpenter stares down his foe. Despite its humorous title, Facing the Enemy addresses one of the fiercest debates of the period: the pleasures and perils of alcohol. By filling the workshop with tools and posters, Francis William Edmonds constructs a story with a familiar moral lesson. The precarious tilt of the carpenter’s chair suggests the dangerous consequences of opening the whisky bottle, but do any clues within the painting tell us if he will resist the temptation?

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