A Harlot's Progress, Plate 5
April 1732
Medium
Etching and engraving; third state of three
Dimensions
plate: 12 5/8 x 15 3/8 in. (32.1 x 39.1 cm) sheet: 13 3/8 x 16 3/16 in. (34 x 41.1 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Sarah Lazarus, 1891
Accession Number
91.1.132
Tags
Art Historical Context
In William Hogarth's *A Harlot's Progress Plate 5* (April 1732), the viewer confronts the tragic finale of a young woman's moral downfall. This etching and engraving, the third state of three, captures an intimate interior scene teeming with boys, men, and women gathered around a deathbed, underscoring themes of vice, hypocrisy, and mortality. Hogarth, a pioneering English satirist, crafted this as the fifth installment in a six-plate series that traces the protagonist's rapid descent from country innocence to urban ruin, offering a stark cautionary tale for 18th-century audiences. Hogarth's ...
About the Artist
William Hogarth · 1697–1764
William Hogarth (1697-1764) was an English painter, printmaker, and pictorial satirist who became the first great English-born artist to attract admiration abroad. Born into poverty in London, the son of a failed schoolmaster who was imprisoned for debt, Hogarth's early experiences with the harsh realities of 18th-century urban life profoundly shaped his artistic vision. After apprenticing with si...