Cruelty in Perfection

Prints and Drawings

1750

John Bell (English, 1721–1780)
after William Hogarth (English, 1697-1764)

Hogarth frequently used an episodic format to depict an unsavory character’s descent into debauchery, and the four-print series Four Stages of Cruelty features the artist’s most sadistic villain, Tom Nero. After impregnating a lady’s maid and convincing her to steal from her mistress and run away with him, he murders her. In John Bell’s large-scale woodcut after Hogarth, Nero is apprehended as the dead body of his lover is discovered.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: William Hogarth
Title: Cruelty in Perfection
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.: 1750
Medium: Woodcut with letterpress in black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions: Image/block: 45.2 × 38.2 cm (17 13/16 × 15 1/16 in.); Sheet: 51.6 × 41.5 cm (20 3/8 × 16 3/8 in.)
Credit Line: William McCallin McKee Memorial and Robert M. Chase Endowment funds
Reference Number: 2015.15
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/227321/manifest.json

Paulson 189 I/II

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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.