Industry and Idleness - The Idle 'Prentice Executed at Tyburn

Date1747

Designed and engraved by William Hogarth (1697 - 1764)

MediumEtching and line engraving

DimensionsOther (Plate): 10 3/4 × 16 1/8in. (27.3 × 41cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1947-488,A

DescriptionUpper margin reads: "The IDLE 'PRENTICE Executed at Tyburn."
Caption reads: "Proverbs CHAP: I: Verf.s: 27.28./ When fear cometh as desolation, and their/ destruction cometh as a Whirlwind; when/ distress cometh upon them. Then they shall / call upon God, but he will not answer."
Lower margin reads: "Design'd & Engrav'd by W.m Hogarth/ Plate 11/ Publish'd according to Act of Parliam.t Sept 30 [ill.]"
Label TextThis print is from a set of prints known as "Industry and Idleness" by William Hogarth. The eleventh plate in the series depicts the execution of the Idle Apprentice, Thomas Idle, who rides on the same cart that carries his coffin. The scene takes place at the intersection of Tyburn Road and Tyburn Lane, the location of the famous gallows which were the site of executions dated back to the 12th century. Hogarth has represented a raucous crowd to suggest the large crowds (sometimes in the tens of thousands) who often gathered to witness hangings.

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.