Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
"A Harlot's Progress, Plate 2
William Hogarth, English, 1697-1764
Engraving
Gift of Prof. William A. McGill, 2001.10.03.02
“Seduced by the glitter of a life of wealth and comfort, Moll has fallen quickly from the hands of the procuress and nobleman into the keeping of an unattractive but wealthy Jewish businessman. Quite transformed by her experience, she apes the life style of the class to which she aspires; instead of her modest work clothes she wears silk stockings, stylish shoes and a fashionable dress that reveals her arms and breast. Her face, which bears a look of spirited insolence, is adorned with a beauty spot that may hide the first signs of venereal disease.
Her apartment is richly appointed. She keeps a maid (dressed much as she herself was in Plate I), an exotic West Indian servant boy and a monkey. The monkey, the most pointed indication of her affectation, resembles the merchant in facial expression and posture, and there is little difference in her treatment of either plaything. Prominent on her dressing table is a mirror, symbol of vanity, beside it a jar of make-up and a smiling white mask. The mask, which is not unlike a death mask, suggests that Moll has been taken to a masquerade by her partially but fashionably dressed visitor, a fellow noticeably more youthful and attractive than the middle-aged businessman who supports her.
Behind her hang small portraits of two contemporaries held to be atheists, Samuel Clarke and Thomas Woolaston. Above the whole scene are two large paintings, one of Jonah outside Nineveh seated next to an ivy plant, the other of David dancing before the Ark while Uzzah, attempting to touch it, is knifed in the back. The picture of Jonah may be a warning to heed the prophet's message to reform. The painting of David and Uzzah, one of whom is killed for his sacrilege, the other rebuked by his wife for indecency, seems to foreshadow the fates that await the two characters in the scene.”
From Sean Shesgreen, Engravings by Hogarth
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