Industry and Idleness- The Industrious Apprentice performing the Duty of a Christian

Date1747

Designed and engraved by William Hogarth (1697 - 1764)

MediumEtching and line engraving

DimensionsPlate: 10 1/2" x 13 3/4"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1947-479,A

DescriptionUpper margin reads:"The INDUSTRIOUS 'PRENTICE performing the Duty of a Christian."
Title reads: "Psalm CXIX Ver: 97./ O How I love thy Law it is my/ meditation all the day"
Lower margin reads: "Design'd & Engrav'd by W.m Hogarth/ Plate 2/ Publish'd according to Act of Parliament Sep.tr 30.th 1747."
Label TextThis print is from a set of prints known as "Industry and Idleness" by William Hogarth. The second plate depicts the interior of a church service in St. Martin's-in-the Fields where a psalm is being sung. The Idle Apprentice is nowhere to be seen, yet the Industrious Apprentice shares a prayer book with a young woman, who turns out to be the daughter of their master.

The series tells stories of the parallel and sometimes intersecting lives of the wayward Idle Apprentice and the successful Industrious Apprentice. The Idle Apprentice was designed to serve as a cautionary tale, while the Industrious Apprentice's life models exemplary behavior. It was issued in 12 prints, was very met with much acclaim and commercial success when they were published in 1747. Hogarth wrote that he designed the prints to educate the youth, particularly apprentices, and therefore series was "calculated for the use & Instruction of youth w[h]erein everything necessary to be known was to be made a intelligible as possible[.] and as fine engraving was not necessary to the main design...the purchase of them became within the reach of those for whom they [were] chiefly intended." They were given by masters to their apprentices as Christmas gifts and were published at Christmas after 1749 in Lillo's 'London Merchant' for the benefit of young apprentices.

See Ronald Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works, I, #168-179.