A Rake's Progress, Plate 7

Date1735

Maker William Hogarth (1697 - 1764)

MediumEtching and line engraving on laid paper

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

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1967-566,7

DescriptionLower margin reads: "Happy the man, whose constant Thought / (Tho' in the school of Hardship taught,)/ Can send Rememberance back to fetch / Treasures from Life's Earliest Stretch: / Who self=approving can reivew / Scenes of past Virtues that shine thro' / The Gloom of Age, & cast a Ray, / To gild the Evening of his Day! / Not so the Guilty Wretch confin'd: / No Pleasures meet his roving mind, / No Blessings fetch'd from early youth, / But broken Faith, & wrested Truth, / Talents idle, & unus'd, / And every Gift of Heaven abus'd, ___ / In Seas of Sad Reflection lost, / From Horrors Still to Horrors tost, / Reason the Vssel leaves to Steer, / And Gives the Helm to mad Despair./ Plate 7 / Invented &c. by W.m Hogarth & Publish'd / According to Act of Parliament June y.e 25. 1735."
Label TextThis is the seventh 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.

The seventh scene is set in Fleet prison, which was a debtor’s prison in London, where Thomas Rakewell is imprisoned after the loss of his wife's fortune. His one-eyed wife stands next to him, scolding him for the loss of their fortune. She's now in desperate circumstances, judging by her appearance. He has written a play from jail, apparently based on his former lover Sarah Young, who has fainted. Her mother, a servant, and her child by Rakewell try to rouse her. An alchemist works in the background and a pair of wings rest atop the canopy of his bed, suggesting the lengths he's gone to escape his fate. They also allude to the fool-hardy nature of Rakewell's desperate attempt to make money off his play. He has fallen into a kind of stupor in the chaos around him, foreshadowing his descent into madness.

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, 1-8.