Gin Lane

Catalogue entry

T01799 Gin Lane 1751

Etching and engraving 357×305 (14 1/4×12) on paper 621×470 (24 1/4×18 3/8); plate-mark 387×326 (15 3/8×12 3/8)
Writing-engraving ‘GIN LANE|Design'd by W. Hogarth|Publish'd according to Act of Parliam! Feb.1.1751.’ and a twelve-line verse caption
Transferred from the reference collection 1973

PROVENANCE Unknown
LITERATURE Oppé 1948, p.48; Paulson 1970, I, pp.209–11, II, pls.199, 200

Hogarth's illustration of the evils of gin-drinking was published as a pair with ‘Beer Street’, as part of a campaign against the uncontrolled production and sale of cheap gin. It culminated in the Gin Act of 1751, through which the number of gin shops was greatly reduced. The original copperplates for both prints are now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and the drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library (Oppé 1948, pl.74). Another drawing for ‘Gin Lane’, dubiously attributed to Hogarth, is in the Huntington Art Gallery, Huth Collection. No.III is, according to Paulson, the fourth state of the engraving.

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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