Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
"A Rake's Progress, Plate 7
William Hogarth, English, 1697-1764
Engraving
Gift of Prof. William A. McGill, 2001.10.04.07
“The promise of Plate IV is here fulfilled and the rake, like the harlot before him, is jailed (for debt). The scene is the crude stone interior of the Fleet, a debtors' prison. The rake, slumped listlessly forward, his face filled with despair and anomie, besieged on all sides, gestures helplessly with his hands and feet. His last desperate attempt to earn money by writing a play has failed; beside him lies a curt rejection, Sr. I have read your Play & find it will not doe yrs. J.R. . h. The misspelled ‘doe’ seems to be a hit at the theater manager and pantomimist John Rich. Rakewell is now so destitute that he cannot give the turnkey the ‘garnish money’ or pay the perturbed youth for a mug of beer. While his shrewish wife assaults him, Sarah Young faints in compassion at his plight. A companion shoves her head toward a bottle of smelling salts; another slaps her hand, while her daughter seems to rebuke the mother for her conduct.
The rake's two cellmates forecast his impending fate; both are, to some degree, mad. The unkempt fellow with the ragged wig and heavy beard who supports Sarah is a projector; though he cannot pay his own debts he has just invented a Scheme for paying ye Debts of ye Nation. The fellow in the corner with the nightcap (who has been there a long time if we are to judge by his elaborate still and chimney) is a mad alchemist. He is too absorbed in his furnace project (probably attempting to turn metal into gold) to notice what transpires around him. His telescope sticks out through the prison bars; three mixing pots stand beside his meager library; a paper inscribed Philosophical protrudes from one volume. Above his canopy rests a pair of wings. Like the rake, his plans to soar beyond his natural realm have brought him only imprisonment and insanity.”
From Sean Shesgreen, Engravings by Hogarth
Alternate label:
Prison Scene
Plate 7: The scene takes place in the interior of
the Fleet, a debtor's prison. The Rake sits
dumbfounded to the right. The letter beside him
tells us that his attempt to earn money by writing a
play has been rejected by the publisher. His one-
eyed wife threatens him while a boy with a glass of
beer and a turnkey wait impatiently for the money
that is owed them.
To the left Sarah Young has fainted at the sight
of the ruined Tom Rakewell. Two women try to
revive her with salts while her now considerably
older daughter scolds her to leave this deplorable
place.
Rakewell's two roommates foretell his own
final fate. To the extreme left, a disheveled, heavily
bearded man has concocted a ""Scheme for paying
ye Debts of ye Nation"", but cannot pay his own. In
the background to the right, an alchemist, complete
with his nightcap and instruments, is probably
working on a way to turn base metal into gold.
Both are thoroughly mad."