William Hogarth - Conversation Piece (Portrait of Sir Andrew Fountainewith Other Men and Women) [c.1730-35]

William Hogarth - Conversation Piece (Portrait of Sir Andrew Fountaine with Other Men and Women) [c.1730-35], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 47.6 x 58.4 cm]

William Hogarth - After [c.1730-31]

William Hogarth - After [c.1730-31], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In this companion piece to Before [the Seduction], a man stands and hurriedly pulls up his breeches after successfully seducing a young woman. Cap and clothing askew, the disheveled woman implores his discretion. The overturned table and broken mirror symbolise the woman's shattered life now that she has lost her virginity. The dog sleeping in the foreground refers to post-coital exhaustion. 

[Oil on canvas, 15.25 x 13.25 inches]

William Hogarth - Before [c.1730-31]

William Hogarth - Before [c.1730-31], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This narrative painting describes the moments before a seduction. A young man in red breeches attempts to pull a young woman onto a bed. Struggling, she tries to push him away, dragging her dressing table down with her. Ironically, an open drawer reveals a book on the rules of courtship. Below, a small dog barks, alarmed by the commotion. 

[Oil on canvas, 14.25 x 13.25 inches]

William Hogarth - Marriage A-la-Mode: 5: The Bagnio [c.1743]

William Hogarth - Marriage A-la-Mode: 5: The Bagnio [c.1743], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

This episode takes place in a bagnio, originally a word used to describe coffee houses which offered Turkish baths, but by 1740 it signified a place where rooms could be provided for the night with no questions asked. The Countess and the lawyer have retired there after the masquerade. The young Earl has followed them and is dying from a wound inflicted by Silvertongue, who escapes through the window, while the Countess pleads forgiveness.

The noise of the fight has awakened the master of the house who appears through the door to the right with the Watch. On the rear wall is a tapestry of the 'Judgement of Solomon', and a painting of a courtesan is over the door.

[Oil on canvas, 70.5 x 90.8 cm]

William Hogarth - Marriage A-la-Mode: 6: The Lady's Death [c.1743]

William Hogarth - Marriage A-la-Mode: 6: The Lady's Death [c.1743], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

The final scene takes place in the house of the Countess's father. She has taken poison on learning that her lover has been hanged for the murder of the Earl, reported in the broadsheet at her feet. Her crippled child embraces her and her father removes a ring from her finger as a suicide's possessions were forfeit. In the centre an apothecary remonstrates with the servant whom he accuses of obtaining the poison.

Through the window to the right is a view of Old London Bridge. A dog seizes his chance to make off with the frugal meal on the table. The paintings on the wall to the left are Dutch low-life scenes, indicating the taste of the alderman.

[Oil on canvas, 69.9 x 90.8 cm]

William Hogarth - Marriage A-la-Mode: 3 The Inspection [c.1743]

William Hogarth - Marriage A-la-Mode: 3 The Inspection [c.1743], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

The third scene takes place in the room of a French doctor. The Viscount is seated with his child mistress beside him, apparently having contracted venereal disease, as indicated by the black spot on his neck, Hogarth's symbol for those taking the mercurial pills which were the only known treatment for this ailment. He holds towards the doctor a box of pills; other boxes on the chair and in his mistress's hand suggest he is seeking an alternative remedy. An older woman holds a clasp knife; she appears to be the young girl's mother.

The machines to the right, identified in the inscription on the open book, are for setting a broken shoulder, and drawing corks. A skeleton embraces a model in the cupboard behind the Viscount.

[Oil on canvas, 69.9 x 90.8 cm]

William Hogarth - Marriage A-la-Mode: 4 The Toilette [c.1743]

William Hogarth - Marriage A-la-Mode: 4 The Toilette [c.1743], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

After the death of the old Earl the wife is now the Countess, with a coronet above her bed and over the dressing table, where she sits. She has also become a mother, and a child's teething coral hangs from her chair. The lawyer Silvertongue invites her to a masquerade like the one to which he points, depicted on the screen. A group of visitors on the left listen to an opera singer, possibly a castrato, accompanied by a flautist.

An African page on the right unpacks a collection of curiosities bought at auction, including a figure of Actaeon. The paintings on the right wall show 'Lot and his Daughters' and 'Jupiter and Io.' On the left wall is a portrait of the lawyer and 'Rape of Ganymede.'

[Oil on canvas, 70.5 x 90.8 cm]

William Hogarth - Marriage A-la-Mode 2: The Tete a Tete [c.1743]

William Hogarth - Marriage A-la-Mode: 2: The Tete a Tete [c.1743], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

In this, the second in the series of paintings, the marriage of the Viscount and the merchant's daughter is quickly proving a disaster. The tired wife, who appears to have given a card party the previous evening, is at breakfast in the couple's expensive house which is now in disorder. The Viscount returns exhausted from a night spent away from home, probably at a brothel: the dog sniffs a lady's cap in his pocket. Their steward, carrying bills and a receipt, leaves the room to the left, his hand raised in despair at the disorder.

The decoration of the room again comments on the action. The picture over the mantlepiece shows Cupid among ruins. In front of it is a bust with a broken nose, symbolising impotence.

[Oil on canvas, 69.9 x 90.8 cm]

William Hogarth - Marriage A-la-Mode 1: The Marriage Settlement [c.1743]

William Hogarth - Marriage A-la-Mode: 1: The Marriage Settlement [c.1743], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

This was the first of Hogarth's satirical moralising series of engravings that took the upper echelons of society as its subject. The paintings were models from which the engravings would be made. The engravings reverse the compositions. 

The story starts in the mansion of the Earl Squander who is arranging to marry his son to the daughter of a wealthy but mean city merchant. It ends with the murder of the son and the suicide of the daughter. In the first scene the aged Earl (far right) is shown with his family tree and the crutches he needs because of his gout. The new house which he is having built is visible through the window. The merchant, who is plainly dressed, holds the marriage contract, while his daughter behind him listens to a young lawyer, Silvertongue. The Earl's son, the Viscount, admires his face in a mirror. Two dogs, chained together in the bottom left corner, perhaps symbolise the marriage.

Hogarth's details, especially the paintings on the walls, comment on the action. A grand portrait in the French manner on the rear wall confronts a Medusa head, denoting horror, on the side wall.

[Oil on canvas, 69.9 x 90.8 cm]

William Hogarth - The Lady’s Last Stake [1759]

William Hogarth (Bartholomew Close, London, November 10, 1697 – October 26, 1764) was a major English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from excellent realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects". Much of his work, though at times vicious, poked fun at contemporary politics and customs.

Hogarth lived in an age when artwork became increasingly commercialised and viewed in shop windows, taverns and public buildings and sold in print shops. Old hierarchies broke down, and new forms began to flourish: the ballad opera, the bourgeois tragedy, and especially, a new form of fiction called the novel with which authors such as Henry Fielding had great success. He drew from the highly moralising Protestant tradition of Dutch genre painting, and the very vigorous satirical traditions of the English broadsheet and other types of popular print. In England the fine arts had little comedy in them before Hogarth. His prints were expensive, and remained so until early nineteenth-century reprints brought them to a wider audience.

Hogarth died in London and was buried at St. Nicholas's Churchyard, Chiswick Mall in Chiswick. His friend the actor David Garrick wrote the inscription on his tombstone.

[Oil on canvas, 36 x 41.5 inches]