William Hogarth

Catalogue entry

T01794 [from] A Rake's Progress 1735 [T01789-T01794;incomplete]

Six plates from a series of eight, etching and engraving, various sizes
Transferred from the reference collection 1973

PROVENANCE Unknown

The eight paintings for the series are now in Sir John Soane's Museum. They were Hogarth's second series of ‘modern moral subjects’ and were painted soon after the publication of ‘A Harlot's Progress’ in 1732. The subscription for the prints after them began in late 1733, but Hogarth delayed publication until 25 June 1735, the day the Engravers' Copyright Act became law. Even so, pirated copies had already appeared by that time. The set cost two guineas, but Hogarth had also a smaller and cheaper set, copied by Thomas Bakewell and costing 2s 6d, published soon after. The original copperplates were sold by Quaritch in 1921 and are now in a private collection. Louis Gérard Scotin (1690-after 1755) is thought to have assisted Hogarth with the engravings.

T01794 The Rake's Progress (Plate 8) 1735–63

Etching and engraving 316×387 (12 7/16×15 1/4) on paper 464×624 (18 1/4×24 1/2); plate-mark 359×410 (14 1/8×16 1/8)
Writing-engraving ‘Invented & c. W^m. Hogarth & Publish'd According to Act of Parliament June y'. 25.1735 Retouch'd by the Author 1763’ and nineteen-line verse caption
LITERATURE
Paulson 1970, I, pp.169–70, no.139, II, pls.248, 149–50

Third state, retouched by Hogarth in 1763. The Rake is now an inmate of a madhouse, probably Bedlam, but even here the faithful Sarah Young visits him and tries to comfort him. A contemporary explanation of this last plate of the series adds that Rakewell ‘is afterwards confin'd down to his Bed in a dark Room where he miserably expires’.

Published in:
Elizabeth Einberg and Judy Egerton, The Age of Hogarth: British Painters Born 1675-1709, Tate Gallery Collections, II, London 1988

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