‘Marriage à-la-mode’ “The Lady's Death” engraved from the original painting by English artist William Hogarth 1697-1764
‘Marriage à-la-mode’ is a series of six pictures painted by William Hogarth between 1743 and 1745 depicting a pointed skewering of upper class 18th century society. This moralistic warning shows the disastrous results of an ill-considered marriage for money and satirises patronage and aesthetics. Hogarth challenges the ideal view that the rich live virtuous lives with a heavy satire on the notion of arranged marriages. In each piece, he shows the young couple and their family and acquaintances at their worst: engaging in affairs, drinking, gambling, and numerous other vices. In the sixth and final painting, The Lady's Death, the Countess poisons herself in her grief and poverty-stricken widowhood, after her lover is hanged at Tyburn for murdering her husband. An old woman carrying her baby allows the child to give her a kiss, but the mark on the child's cheek and the caliper on her leg suggest that disease has been passed onto the next generation. The countess's father, whose miserly lifestyle is evident in the bare house, removes the wedding ring from her is a 19th Century version by J. Mansell from the original painting by Hogarth.
Size: 7526px × 5960px
Photo credit: © still light / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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