Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
"A Rake's Progress, Plate 3
William Hogarth, English, 1697-1764
Engraving
Gift of Prof. William A. McGill, 2001.10.04.03
“Plate II illustrates Tom's morning entertainments; Plate III depicts his evening pleasures, exposing both Tom himself and the aristocratic model upon which he forms himself. He has ordered an extravagant orgy for himself and a single acquaintance. The affair takes place in a shabby room that may once have had pretensions to grandeur; the inscription on the large plate held by the servant with the infantile grin on his face reads John Bonvine at the Rose Tavern Drury Lane.
Tom and his companion seem to have played a substantial part in the pointless destruction that has been visited on the place. The backs of the chairs have been broken, the room's mirror shattered and portraits of Augustus, Titus, Otho, Vitelius, and Vespatianus have been slashed. Only the portraits of Nero and Pontac, a person after whom a well-known London restaurant was named, have survived. Surrounded again by commercial people and besotted by alcohol but still drinking, the rake reclines close to a bed, his clothes unbuttoned, on the bosom of a solicitous harlot.
With typical aristocratic disregard for the law, his unsheathed sword has been drawn in a cowardly attack upon an unarmed watchman. The watchman's battered lantern and staff lie at the rake's feet along with a broken glass, some scattered pills and part of a portrait of an emperor (Iulius). The innocent-looking (and very sober) harlot fondles Tom as she passes his watch to an accomplice.
At the table an angry woman spews a stream of gin at another who threatens her with a knife. A mischief maker sets fire symbolically to a map of the world. Below her the rake's drunken acquaintance and a stupefied harlot fondle mechanically. A very sober Black woman smiles at a half-conscious figure who spills the contents of the large punchbowl over herself in an attempt to consume it; she is restrained by a more delicate companion who drinks from a glass and bottle.
Behind them the ‘posture woman,’ wearing stockings bearing an incongruous coronet, undresses sleepily. She will perform on the large dish in the center of the table with the candle as her prop. Her underclothes lie piled on top of the emperor's face. Her index finger points to the stuck chicken although she herself does not seem to see the parallels between her own condition and the bird's. By the door stands a ragged ballad singer advertising the Black Joke; her pregnant, desolate state is a warning to the harlots about the hazards of their occupation. In the corner a trumpeter and harpist provide the music for the girl's act. It is morning; daylight shines through the window and is reflected on the bottles on the table.”
From Sean Shesgreen, Engravings by Hogarth
Alternate label:
The Tavern Scene
Plate 3: The third scene depicts an all night
entertainment. From the platter being carried in we
learn that this is the Rose Tavern, an actual
establishment in Hogarth’s time. Rakewell’s watch,
which is being stolen by a whore, shows the time to
be 3 o’clock in the morning, and Tom Rakewell is
so drunk he seems to have gotten in a fight with a
London street watchman, as evident by the broken
lantern and staff at Rakewell’s feet, and when he
went to put his sword back in the scabbard he
missed and shoved it through the pendant of his
belt.
A number of characters sitting at the table
display various symptoms of over-indulgence. In
the right foreground another prostitute undresses,
preparing herself for an act that includes the candle
and large plate above her head. Her discarded
clothes cover the face of one of the mutilated
portraits. Symbolically unaware of her own
situation, her index finger points to a plucked
chicken lying on the floor."