William Hogarth was an English painter, engraver, pictorial satirist, social critic, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects", and he is perhaps best known for his series A Harlot's Progress, A Rake's Progress and Marriage A-la-Mode. Knowledge of his work is so pervasive that satirical political illustrations in this style are often referred to as "Hogarthian".
John Constable was an English landscape painter in the Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home – now known as "Constable Country" – which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling".
John Boydell was an English publisher noted for his reproductions of engravings. He helped alter the trade imbalance between Britain and France in engravings and initiated an English tradition in the art form. A former engraver himself, Boydell promoted the interests of artists as well as patrons and as a result his business prospered.
Rockwell Kent was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, writer, sailor, adventurer and voyager.
John Raphael Smith was a British painter and mezzotinter. He was the son of Thomas Smith of Derby, the landscape painter, and father of John Rubens Smith, a painter who emigrated to the United States.
Marriage A-la-Mode is a series of six pictures painted by William Hogarth between 1743 and 1745, intended as a pointed skewering of 18th-century society. They show the disastrous results of an ill-considered marriage for money or social status, and satirize patronage and aesthetics. The pictures are held in the National Gallery in London.
A Harlot's Progress is a series of six paintings and engravings (1732) by the English artist William Hogarth. The series shows the story of a young woman, M. Hackabout, who arrives in London from the country and becomes a prostitute. The series was developed from the third image. After painting a prostitute in her boudoir in a garret on Drury Lane, Hogarth struck upon the idea of creating scenes from her earlier and later life. The title and allegory are reminiscent of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
Henry Thomas Alken was an English painter and engraver chiefly known as a caricaturist and illustrator of sporting subjects and coaching scenes. His most prolific period of painting and drawing occurred between 1816 and 1831.
Samson and Delilah is a painting long attributed to the Flemish Baroque artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) in the National Gallery, London. It dates from about 1609 to 1610.
Hogarth Painting the Comic Muse is a painting in the National Portrait Gallery, London by the British artist William Hogarth. It was painted in approximately 1757 and published as a print in etching and engraving in 1758, with its final and sixth state in 1764. Hogarth used this particular self-portrait as the frontispiece of his collected engravings, published in 1764.
John Romney was an English artist in printmaking and watercolour who lived and worked in London and Chester. Much of his work consisted of reproductions of the work of other artists, but he produced some original prints, paintings and drawings. Like the great majority of contemporary printmakers he worked in both engraving and etching, often on the same plate, and descriptions of his prints as being in one or the other technique should be taken loosely. His best known original prints are series of views of the Chester area and his part of one on the antiquities in the British Museum. He was apparently not related to the famous portraitist George Romney (1734–1802).
Emblematical Print on the South Sea Scheme is an early print by William Hogarth, created in 1721 and widely published from 1724. It caricatures the financial speculation, corruption and credulity that caused the South Sea Bubble in England in 1720–21. The print is often considered the first editorial cartoon or as a precursor of the form.
Bernard Baron was a French engraver and etcher who spent much of his life in England.
John Thomas Smith, also known as Antiquity Smith (1766–1833), was an English painter, engraver and antiquarian. He wrote a life of the sculptor Joseph Nollekens, that was noted for its "malicious candour", and was a keeper of prints for the British Museum.
Robert Sayer (1725–1794) was a leading publisher and seller of prints, maps and maritime charts in Georgian Britain. He was based near the Golden Buck on 53 Fleet Street in London.
The Bad Taste of the Town is an early print by the British artist William Hogarth, first published in February 1723. The small print – 5 by 6 inches – mocks the contemporary fashion for foreign culture, including Palladian architecture, pantomimes based on the Italian commedia dell'arte, masquerades, and Italian opera. The work combines two printmaking techniques – etching and engraving – with etched lines made in the plate using acid and engraved lines marked using a burin.
The Last Judgement is a triptych of oil paintings by the British artist John Martin, created in 1851–1853. The work comprises three separate paintings on a theme of the end of the world, inspired by the Book of Revelation. The paintings, The Plains of Heaven, The Last Judgement, and The Great Day of His Wrath, are generally considered to be among Martin's most important works, and have been described by some art critics as his masterpiece.
Elhanan Bicknell was a successful London businessman and shipowner. He used his wealth as a patron of the arts, becoming one of the leading collectors of contemporary British art.
Jane Hogarth was a British printseller and businesswoman who preserved the rights to the artwork of her husband, William Hogarth, following his death. She successfully continued to produce and sell his work for many years.
John Thane (1748–1818) was an English art dealer, working also as an engraver and printseller. He is known for British Autography, a multi-volume work of portraits with handwriting samples of famous personages.
