Industry and Idleness - The Idle 'Prentice Returned from Sea and in a Garret with a Common Prostitute

Date1747

Designed and engraved by William Hogarth (1697 - 1764)

MediumEtching and line engraving

DimensionsOther (Plate): 10 1/2 × 13 3/4in. (26.7 × 34.9cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1947-484,A

DescriptionUpper margn reads: "The IDLE 'PRENTICE returne'd from Sea & in a Garret with a common Prostitute."
Caption reads: "Leviticus CHAP: XXVI. Ve: 36./ The Sound of a Shaken Leaf/ shall Chace him."
Lower margin: "Design'd & Engrav'd by W.m Hogarth./ Plate 7/ Publish'd according to Acrt of Parliam.t Sept. 30 [ill]"
Label TextThis print is from a set of prints known as "Industry and Idleness" by William Hogarth. In the seventh installment of the set, Idle (the Idle Apprentice) has returned from sea and has taken up highway robbery as his new profession. He is shown in bed with a woman described as a "common prostitute" who looks over the loot that Idle collected from a recent robbery. Idle jumps in surprise in response to a loud noise, which he assumes is the law banging at the door to intercept him. Instead, it is the sound of a cat crashing down the chimney after a rat. His illegal profession and the disreptuable company he keeps is in stark contrast with the financially successful and moral life led by the Industrious Apprentice (Goodchild).

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.