A Rake's Progress, Plate 1

Dateca. 1790

Designed and engraved by William Hogarth (1697 - 1764)

Engraver Gerard Jean-Baptiste Scotin (1698 - after 1755)

Formerly attributed to Louis Gerard Scotin

OriginEngland, London

MediumEtching and line engraving on laid paper

DimensionsOverall: 17 3/4 × 23in. (45.1 × 58.4cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1967-566,1

DescriptionLower margin reads: "O Vanity of Age, untoward,/ Ever Spleeny, ever forward!/ Why those Bolts, & Massy Chains,/ Squint Suspicions, jealous Pains?/ Why, thy toilsom Journey o'er,/ Lay'st thou in an useless Store?/ Hope along with Time is flown,/ Nor canst thou reap y.e Field thou'st sown./ Hast Tough a Son? In Time be wise --/ He views thy Toil with other Eyes --/ Needs must thy kind, paternal Care,/ Lock'd in thy Chests, be buried there :/ Whence then shall flow y.t friendly Ease,/ That social Converse, homefelt Peace,/ Familiar Duty without Dread,/ Instruction from Example bred,/ That youthfull Mind with Freedom mend,/ And with y.e Father mix the Friend?/ Invented Printed & Engrav'd by W.m Hogarth, &/ Publish'd June y'e 25 1735. According to Act/ of Parliament./ Plate 1`"
Label TextThis is the first scene of one of William Hogarth's most popular "Modern Moral Subjects”: " A Rake's Progress." With the popularity of 'A Harlot's Progress,' he commenced selling subscriptions in late 1733, but the prints were not completed until June, 1735. Part of this delay was the passage of the Engraver's Act, which was designed to prevent pirating of engraver's works. Hogarth waited until the act took effect on June 25th, 1735 - the date engraved on the prints - to publish the series. Despite his careful planning, pirated copies appeared on the market in early June apparently based on Hogarth's original paintings for the set, now in the collection of Sir John Soane's Museum.

In this first scene, the Rake, Tom Rakewell, has inherited a fortune after the death of his miserly father. Hogarth hints at the senior Rakewell's penny-pinching habits: the stub of a candle, a starved cat, an empty fireplace, cracked crockery, and a mutilated Bible (the cover of which has been cut apart to make the sole of a shoe). Young Tom Rakewell wastes no time spending his newly acquired wealth. As the room is fitted out in black crepe by an upholsterer for mourning, Tom is fit by a tailor for a new set of clothes. He launches into his emulation of aristocratic rakes by rejecting and paying off Sarah Young, the woman he promised to marry, in hopes of wealthier prospects. The jilted pregnant woman holds a wedding band and her angry mother rails against the young man, carrying letters of his broken promises in her apron.

This is state four of the print. Though printed from Hogarth's original copperplate (with some strengthening), this print is part of the Boydell edition published after 1790. Hogarth's copperplates were re-used after his death by his widow, Jane until her death in 1789. They were sold to the print publishers John and Josiah Boydell who published until the Boydell sale in 1818. In 1822, James Heath was in possession of the plates and published at least four bound editions of the plates. For more, see Ronald Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works, Third Revised Edition (London: Print Room, 1989), pp. 20-21.

For more of the set see 1967-556, 2-8. For the authorized copy of this plate see: 1986-21,A by Thomas Bakewell.