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".
Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon, called "Crébillon fils", was a French novelist.
The Sofa: A Moral Tale is a 1742 libertine novel by Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon. It was first translated into English in the spring of 1742 in an edition published by John Nourse and Thomas Cooper. This translation has been attributed to Eliza Haywood and William Hatchett.
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.
The Tête à Tête is the second canvas in the series of six satirical paintings known as Marriage A-la-Mode, painted by William Hogarth.
Roger de Piles was a French painter, engraver, art critic and diplomat.
Four Times of the Day is a series of four oil paintings by English artist William Hogarth. They were completed in 1736 and in 1738 were reproduced and published as a series of four engravings. They are humorous depictions of life in the streets of London, the vagaries of fashion, and the interactions between the rich and poor. Unlike many of Hogarth's other series, such as A Harlot's Progress, A Rake's Progress, Industry and Idleness, and The Four Stages of Cruelty, it does not depict the story of an individual, but instead focuses on the society of the city in a humorous manner. Hogarth does not offer a judgment on whether the rich or poor are more deserving of the viewer's sympathies. In each scene, while the upper and middle classes tend to provide the focus, there are fewer moral comparisons than seen in some of his other works. Their dimensions are about 74 cm (29 in) by 61 cm (24 in) each.
The Marriage Settlement is the first in the series of six satirical paintings known as Marriage A-la-Mode painted by William Hogarth.
The Inspection is the third canvas in the series of six satirical paintings known as Marriage à-la-mode by William Hogarth.
The Bagnio is the fifth canvas in the series of six satirical paintings known as Marriage A-la-Mode painted by William Hogarth.
The Lady's Death is the sixth and final canvas in the series of satirical paintings known as Marriage A-la-Mode painted by William Hogarth.
Sigismunda mourning over the Heart of Guiscardo, fully titled Sigismunda mourning over the Heart of Guiscardo, her murder'd Husband, is an oil painting by British artist William Hogarth. Finished in 1759, it was the principal piece of the eight works he displayed in an exhibition in 1761. It was the final and most ambitious of his attempts to secure for himself a reputation as a history painter. It depicts a dramatic moment in one of the novelle in Boccaccio's Decameron. While Hogarth had expected this work to be acclaimed as a masterpiece of dramatic painting, the work was met with criticism and ridicule. In the catalogue of the exhibition of Hogarth's works at the Tate Gallery in 2007, the criticism was described as "some of the most damning critical opprobrium the artist ever suffered".
Taste in High Life is an oil-on-canvas painting from around 1742, by William Hogarth. The version seen on the right was engraved by Samuel Phillips in 1798, under commission from John Boydell for a posthumous edition of Hogarth's works, but Phillips's final, third state was not published until 1808.
Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism is a satirical print by the English artist William Hogarth. It ridicules secular and religious credulity, and lampoons the exaggerated religious "enthusiasm" of the Methodist movement. The print was originally engraved in 1761, with the title Enthusiasm Delineated, but never published. The original print may have been a response to three essays published by Joshua Reynolds in The Idler in 1759, praising the sublime work of Italian Counter-Reformation artists. It certainly satirized both the English connoisseurs' enthusiasm for old masters and Roger de Piles's Balance de peintres, which was much discussed among art critics in the eighteenth century. However, Hogarth reworked the engraving before publishing it on 15 March 1762 as Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism: A Medley, now laying more stress on Methodist fanaticism and echoing his earlier print, The Sleeping Congregation of 1736, in which an Anglican clergyman's boring sermon puts his congregation to sleep.
Bernard Baron was a French engraver and etcher who spent much of his life in England.
Henri Jean-Baptiste Victoire Fradelle (1778–1865) was a Franco-English Victorian painter and portraitist, specializing in literary, historical, and religious subjects. For more than a hundred years, he was confused with his son, Henry Joseph Fradelle (1805–1872), who was trained as an artist but had several professions, including infirmary supervisor. It was only in the first decade of the 21st century that this mistake was identified and that biographies, lists, and auction houses gave Fradelle his rightful name.
It is almost certain that Prussian King Frederick the Great (1712–1786) was primarily homosexual, and that his sexual orientation was central to his life. However, the nature of his actual relationships remains speculative. Though he had an arranged marriage, Frederick produced no children and was succeeded by his nephew. His favoured courtiers were exclusively male, and his art collection celebrated homoeroticism. Persistent rumours connecting the king with homosexual activity circulated around Europe during his lifetime, but there is less surviving definitive evidence of any sexual relationships of his, homosexual or otherwise. However, in July 1750, the Prussian king unmistakably wrote to his gay secretary and reader, Claude Étienne Darget: “Mes hémorroïdes saluent affectueusement votre v…”, which strongly suggests that he was sexually involved with men. Furthermore, at an advanced age, the king advised his nephew in a written document against passive anal intercourse, which from his own experience was "not very pleasant". That he actually did desire men is also clear from statements by his famous contemporaries, Voltaire and Giacomo Casanova, who personally knew him and his sexual preferences. Significantly, Voltaire nicknamed Frederick "Luc". When read backwards, it means "cul". According to Wolfgang Burgdorf, “Various foreign envoys ... reported on Frederick’s ‘unnatural vice’. ... None of them bothered with the idea of influencing the Prussian court’s policy by launching a new mistress. Saxony and France, however, repeatedly managed to place good-looking young men near him. Sanssouci was a women-free zone during the Friderican era.” Frederick himself once shocked a dinner party with a misogynist rant against "ghastly women you smelled ten miles around."
Frederick the Great was the subject of many portraits. Many were painted during Frederick's life, and he would give portraits of himself as gifts. Almost all portraits of Frederick are idealized and do not reflect how he looked according to his death mask. It has been suggested that the most accurate representation of Frederick may be the picture of a flautist from William Hogarth's series Marriage A-la-Mode.
