Marriage à-la-mode. Plate 5. The death of the Earl

The fifth of a series of six engravings, based on paintings by William Hogarth (1743-45). The paintings are in the National Gallery, London. Hogarth commissioned three French expatriate specialist engravers (in this print Simon Francois Ravenet), as they were the finest practitioners of the medium in mid-18th century London. The importation of French fashions, manners and morals, which Hogarth considered effete and affected, is also satirised in the series.

In Marriage à-la-mode, Hogarth challenges the ideal view that the rich live virtuous lives with a heavy satire on the notion of arranged marriages. In each piece, he shows the young couple and their family and acquaintances at their worst: engaging in affairs, drinking, gambling, and numerous other vices. This is widely regarded as his finest project, certainly the best example of his serially-planned story cycles.

In this scene in the series, The death of the Earl (a.k.a. The bagnio), the new Earl has caught his wife in a shabby London bagnio (bath-house or boarding house with 'no questions asked') with her lover, the lawyer Silvertongue, and is fatally wounded in the ensuing altercation. As she begs forgiveness from the stricken man, the killer in his nightshirt makes a hasty exit through the window. The owner of the bagnio and a constable enter on the left. A picture of a woman with a squirrel on her hand, hanging behind the countess, contains lewd undertones (a squirrel was the common name for a harlot, as she too was supposed to cover her back with her tail). Masks on the floor indicate that the couple have been at a masquerade.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_%C3%A0-la-mode_(Hogarth)

Dr Mark Stocker, Curator Historical International Art                                   November 2016