The Sleeping Congregation

Prints and Drawings

October 1736

William Hogarth
English, 1697-1764

William Hogarth’s scathing indictments of the extremes of the churchgoing community take no prisoners, whether lambasting credulous Catholics or disinterested Methodists. Only the preacher and his attendant clerk here have managed to stay awake this long into the sermon. Most of the audience is snoring, tumbling onto each other in deep slumber. The young lady to the right, with her unguarded décolletage, holds a pamphlet about marriage, which may inspire her dreams. In contrast, the sidelong glance she receives from the clerk suggests his intentions are anything but honorable.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: William Hogarth
Title: The Sleeping Congregation
Place: England (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1736
Medium: Etching and engraving in black on ivory wove paper
Dimensions: Image: 25 × 19.5 cm (9 7/8 × 7 11/16 in.); Plate: 26.4 × 20.4 cm (10 7/16 × 8 1/16 in.); Sheet: 30 × 25 cm (11 13/16 × 9 7/8 in.)
Credit Line: The Wallace L. DeWolf and Joseph Brooks Fair Collections
Reference Number: 1920.2231
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/108984/manifest.json

Paulson 1989: 140 I/IV

Paulson 1965/70: 140 I/IV

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.