Industry and Idleness - The Industrious 'Prentice grown rich & Sheriff of London

Date1747

Designed and engraved by William Hogarth (1697 - 1764)

MediumEtching and line engraving

DimensionsOther: 10 3/8 × 13 3/4in. (26.4 × 34.9cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1947-485,A

DescriptionUpper margin reads: "The INDUSTRIOUS 'PRENTICE grown rich & Sheriff of London."
Caption reads: "Proverbs CH: IV. Ver: 7,8./ With all thy getting get understanding./ Exalt her, & she shall promote thee : she shall bring thee honour, when thou dost Embrace her."
Lower margin reads: "Design'd & Engav'd by W.m Hogarth/ Plate 8/ Publish'd according to Act of Parliam't Sep..br 30 1747."
Label TextThis print is from a set of prints known as "Industry and Idleness" by William Hogarth. In the eighth plate in the series, Goodchild (the Industrious Apprentice) and his wife are the guests of honor at a banquet at the Guildhall to celebrate his appointment as the Sheriff of London.

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.