Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

The bench [print] : of the different meaning of the words character, caracatura and outrè in painting and drawing / design'd & engrav'd by W. Hogarth.

Accession number
PML 146853.11
Creator
Hogarth, William, 1697-1764.
Published
[London] : Publish'd as the act directs, 4 Sept 1758.
Credit line
Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987.
Notes
The 5th state as described by Paulson, issued after Hogarth's death in 1764.
Text beneath image on a second plate (118 x 212 mm) reiterates Hogarth's familiar criticism of the vogue for caricature, beginning: There are hardly any two things more essentially different than Character and Caracatura ...; and ending: - see Excess, Analysis of Beauty, Chap. 6; additional lettering at the foot of the plate in this state reads: *** The unfinish'd Groupe of Heads in the upper part of this Print was added by the Author in Octr 1764: & was intended as a further Illustration of what is here said concerning Character Caracatura & Outrè, He worked upon it the Day before his Death which happened the 26th. of that Month.
Library's copy mounted on bound album leaf, 455 x 625 mm
Print forms part of an album (PML 146853) that is one of three containing the collected works of William Hogarth; evidently comprised of prints reissued by the artist's widow and compiled no earlier than 1781 (see PML 146851-53).
Description
1 print : etching and engraving ; image: 169 x 199 mm; plate mark: 189 x 209 mm; sheet: 340 x 262 mm
Provenance
From the library of Gordon N. Ray.
Summary
Print shows four bewigged judges, three of whom are asleep, seated on the bench in Westminster Hall; at the top, eight caricatured heads, two representing one of the judges below, the others, two versions of the lame man in Raphael's Sacrifice at Lystra (extreme left) and apostles in Leonardo's Last Supper.
Classification
Department