Plate two, from A Harlot's Progress

Prints and Drawings

1732

William Hogarth
English, 1697-1764

Here Hogarth’s titular harlot, Moll Hackabout, enjoys life as the mistress of a wealthy man. In order to allow her lover, seen hiding in the background, to escape, Moll distracts the master of the house by overturning a table and enticing him with a view of her chest. The two paintings of Old Testament scenes on the wall underscore the moral depravity of Moll’s situation. Because of her careless antics and seemingly boundless sexual appetite, however, Moll will soon be returned to the brothel from which she was effectively purchased.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: William Hogarth
Title: Plate two, from A Harlot's Progress
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.: 1732
Medium: Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions: Image: 30 × 37.2 cm (11 13/16 × 14 11/16 in.); Plate: 31.5 × 38.2 cm (12 7/16 × 15 1/16 in.); Sheet: 43.5 × 53.7 cm (17 3/16 × 21 3/16 in.)
Credit Line: The Amanda S. Johnson and Marion J. Livingston Fund
Reference Number: 2015.216.2
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/228984/manifest.json

Paulson 122

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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.