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Hogarth Editions

Evening

Four Prints
of an Election

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Plate II
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Plate IV

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   HOGARTH: COMPARING THE TEXTS  

   
   
 

Evening

 

by William Hogarth

   
     

Lifetime Edition, 2nd state, 1738

   
 

Boydell Edition, c. 1800

 

Heath Edition, 1822

   
     
   
     
   
     
   
 

This description by John Nichols is from The Works of William Hogarth from the Original Plates Restored by James Heath, Esq., published by Baldwin and Crodock, 1822

On the side of the New River, near Sadler's Wells, where the scene in this Plate is laid, lies one of the wooden pipes employed in the water-works.

There still remains the sign of Sir Hugh Middleton's Head, which Hogarth has here introduced.
It is not easy to imagine fatigue better delineated than in the appearance of this amiable pair. In a few of the earliest impressions, Mr. Hogarth printed the hands of the man in blue, to show that he was a dyer, and the face and neck of the woman in red, to intimate her extreme heat. The Hope of the Family, with a cockade in his hat, and riding upon papa's cane, seems much dissatisfied with female sway. Nothing can be better imagined than the group in the alehouse: they have been taking a refreshing walk into the country, and, being determined to have a cooling pipe, seat themselves in a chair-lumbered closet, with a low ceiling; where every man putting off his wig, and throwing a pocket handkerchief over his head, inhales the fumes of hot punch, the smoke of half a dozen pipes, and the dust from the road. The old gentleman in a black bag-wig, and the two women near him, sensibly enough, take their seats in the open air. From a woman milking a cow, we conjecture the hour to be about five in the afternoon; and from the same circumstance, I am inclined to think this agreeable party are going to their pastoral bower, rather than returning from it. The cow and dog appear as much inconvenienced by heat as any of the party; the former is whisking off the flies; and the latter creeps unwillingly along, and casts a longing look at the crystal river, in which he sees his own shadow. A remarkably hot summer is intimated by the luxuriant state of a vine creeping over an alehouse window.

This Print was engraved by Baron; but some touches of Hogarth's burin are visible on the faces. Our artist inserted the little girl with the fan as an after-thought, some friend having asked him what the boy cried for; which circumstance shows that this great genius did not think himself above advice.

   
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