Very rare 1745 first issue print, William Hogarth, Marriage-a-la-Mode Plate 4
£480.00
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Very rare 1745 first issue print, William Hogarth, Marriage-a-la-Mode Plate 4
£480.00
Size: Full sheet 46.5 x 38.5 cm. The print is trimmed to the platemark.
Condition: Overall in very good condition, with no water staining, creases or tears. The print has some toning consistent with its age. It is on stout laid paper, consistent with that known to have been used for the publication to subscribers.
This very scarce print is a first issue of this work by William Hogarth, the fourth plate of a series of 6 which Hogarth published after his own paintings.
The prints were originally issued to subscribers, and this is one of those issued. It is the 2nd known state of the print, the first being a proof before title.
Hogarth, unusually, engaged French engravers to engrave the series, for this print Simon François Ravenet. Hogarth appeared to be satisfied with this engraving, as the only alteration he subsequently made was to add a shadow between the dresses in the centre of the print.
See Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works, 1989, page 114 et seq. for further detail.
Hogarth made the paintings for the prints with a view to the publication of the print series - this was how he intended to make most of his money. For that reason he made the paintings in reverse, so that the prints show the true reading of the series. The narrative series shows the disastrous results of an ill-considered marriage for money or social status, and satirises patronage and aesthetics.
The exact number of prints made in the first subscription edition of "Marriage" is not known, but it was probably between 1000 and 2000 (of each print in the set). Many of these original prints, which were designed to be displayed on the wall, have been spoilt or lost, and original first issues are therefore extremely rare.
Prints continued to be issued from Hogarth's plates into the 19th century, but there is a level of detail, particularly in the finer parts of the engraving, which simply does not exist in later prints, made after the plates had been used many times.