Industry and Idleness - The Industrious 'Prentice a Favourite and entrusted by his Master

Date1747

Designed and engraved by William Hogarth (1697 - 1764)

MediumEtching and line engraving

DimensionsOther (Plate): 10 3/8 × 13 3/4in. (10 3/8 × 13 3/4in.)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1947-481,A

DescriptionUpper margin reads: "The INDUSTRIOUS 'PRENTICE a Favourite and entrusted by his Master."
Caption reads: "Matthew, CHAP: XXV. Ve: 21./ Well done thou good and faithfull/ Servant, thou hast been faithfull/ over a few things, I will make thee/ Ruler over many things".
Lower margin: "Design'd & Engrav'd by W:.m Hogarth./ Plate 4/ Publish'd according to Act of Parliament Sep. 30. 1747."
Label TextThis print is from a set of prints known as "Industry and Idleness" by William Hogarth. In the fourth plate, the Industrious Apprentice has been promoted and is entrusted with the books in the counting house (which is raised above the workshop where weavers and spinners work at looms). He has earned the trust of the master of the workshop and holds the purse, the daybook, and the key to the workshop. He relationship to his master is symbolized by the clasped gloves on the desk. On the side of the desk is the "LONDON ALMANACK" with a picture above the calendar of Youth or Industry seizing Time by the forelock. We learn the master's name from the address on the rolls of cloth carried by the porter: "To Mr. West." The porter has the badge of the City of London hanging from his neck, and a dog at his heels growls at a cat, who protects the workshop.

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.