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KC1968-1018
Industry and Idleness - The Industrious 'Prentice Lord Mayor of London
KC1968-1018

Industry and Idleness - The Industrious 'Prentice Lord Mayor of London

Date1747
Designed and engraved by William Hogarth (1697 - 1764)
OriginEngland, London
MediumEtching and line engraving
DimensionsOther (Plate): 10 7/8 × 16 1/8in. (27.6 × 41cm)
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Object number1947-489,A
DescriptionUpper margin reads: "The INDUSTRIOUS 'APRENTICE Lord-Mayor of London."
Caption reads: "Proverbs CHAP: III. Ver: 16./ Length of days is in her right hand and/ in her left hand Riches and Honour."
Lower margin reads: "Design'd & Engrav'd by W.m Hogarth./ Plate 12/ 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. The 12th and final plate of the series shows the Industrious Apprentice, aka Goodchild, who is ultimately rewarded for the industriousness that has been chronicled since his youth by being appointed Mayor of London. Large crowds of people, line the streets of London as the procession moves east on Cheapside, having just emerged from St. Paul's Churchyard. In contrast with the Idle Apprentice, who was publicly executed in plate 11 in front of a large crowd, the Industrious Apprentice is publicly celebrated.

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.