Description:
Hogarth prints were among the most popular available before the 19th century--so much so that it was easy to get pirated editions of his works. "Hogarth was a moral dramatist... in favor of raising satire to an artistic standard that would attract a cultivated if not intellectural audience. "Marriage a-la--Mode follows the unhappy marriage and fatal end of a young couple whose marriage was arranged for financial gain, The union quickly unravels in the face of gambling, infidelity, and greed. As in all his works, these prints are full of detail and symbols, and give an accurate portrayal of funiture and interior decor of his period. Plate V, The Bagnio, " In Bagnio where Vicious Hide; The Giddy Husband finds his Faithless Bride. The Gallant Desperate had to Crimes been us'd; Destroy the Man his Practice Abus'd." one of a set of six hand-colored engravings titled "MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE. Plate V. The Bagnio. Invented & Painted by Wm. Hogarth. Interior with a man, standing, with blood on his shirt and a woman on her knee looking up to him. Men are coming in the door on the left, and a man is climbing out a window on the right. 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. See E. McSherry Fowble, "Two Centuries of Prints in America 1680-1880, A Selective Catalogue of the Winterthur Museum Collection" (University Press of Virginia, 1987), pp. 19, 187.
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