Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
"A Rake's Progress, Plate 1
William Hogarth, English, 1697-1764
Engraving
Gift of Prof. William A. McGill, 2001.10.04.01
“In Plate I, Hogarth explains Tom Rakewell in terms of a rejection of his father and contrasts the two very different characters. The plate depicts the rake spurning the middle-class values (duty, marriage, thrift) that his father has lived by. The miser has died suddenly, and the cracked, bare walls of his office—it has no home comforts—are being covered by black cloth for the wake. Funeral escutcheons, the motto and arms of old Rakewell, already hang on the wall, showing three vises (= vices) with motto Beware (particularly appropriate advice for the unheeding son).
To assuage his curiosity about the extent of his newly acquired wealth, Tom has opened the closets, strongboxes and documents of the elder Rakewell (a name suited equally to father and son). The father's diary records with equal value his only son's homecoming and cheating someone with a fake coin (Memordums 1721 May 3 my Son Tom came from Oxford 4th/Dine at ye French Ordinary 5th put of my Bad Shilling). Scattered carelessly around Tom's feet lies the miser's paper wealth; India Bonds, Mortgages, Fines & Recovery's, Lease & Release, and This Indenture. A strongbox with a triple lock holds silver plate and money; it contains three sacks labeled 1000, 2000, 3000. A famished, snarling cat (the place is without food and therefore mice) guards the chest.
The last prophetic act of the miser has been to cut a sole for his shoe from a Bible cover; he has died before sewing the leather completely. Beside the mutilated Bible, a chest and a closet contain worthless trivia accumulated compulsively over the years; they include a broken lantern, a shovel, a pair of shoes, an odd boot, two swords, a broken jug, a bowl and wigs. Having long ceased to entertain, the miser has stored away a spit and jack in an inaccessible wall compartment. The old man's stick and crutch rest against the mantle, and his glasses (without lenses) hang near them.
The room is without decoration except for a picture of the miser himself who sits with a pair of scales in his hand (a comic reference to the scales of justice) counting money. Even in his portrait he wears his overcoat to avoid burning a fire. Money fearfully secreted in the ceiling spills down on his portrait. Three of the miser's former employees attend the rake. An old servant prepares to light a blazing fire; a lawyer (identified by his baize bag used to carry documents) interrupts his inventory-taking to claim his fee surreptitiously; and an ill-dressed, economical tailor measures Tom for a mourning suit.
Already Tom's past is troubling him. Sarah Young, a sentimental representative of middle-class good nature, patience and loyalty—everything that Tom is not—has been seduced at the university, in part by promises of marriage; in her drooping hand she holds a ring; and her mother carries love letters from Tom (To Mrs. Sarah Young and Dearest Life...& marry you). Pregnant, she comes to Tom with her mother who confronts Tom with an animal fierceness (she resembles in expression the cat by the strongbox). Tom, a childish-faced person, callously tries to buy the mother off with his newly acquired wealth as he postures to permit the tailor to continue his work without interruption. He shows no signs of grief at his father's death.
Hogarth’s revisions of his plates are regularly pessimistic. In earlier states of this print, the desecrated Bible is absent, Sarah looks younger and less drawn. and Tom appears more youthful, naive and expressive. Other differences include a shift in the location of the diary and the inclusion of a bill for the mourning cloth.”
From Sean Shesgreen, Engravings by Hogarth
Alternate label:
The Young Heir Taking Possession
Plate 1: The opening scene of A Rake’s Progress
shows young Tom Rakewell in the dreary family
home of his recently deceased father. Everything
within this cold and dark room reinforces the fact
that the father was an obsessive miser, including a
portrait portraying him counting money and hidden
coins dislodged from a crack in the wall by a
workman hammering up black cloth for the funeral.
To the lower left, we see evidence that the father
has cut a sole for his shoe from the leather cover of
a Bible.
We already see evidence that Tom’s character
veers to the opposite extreme. Without sympathy
for his deceased father he has quickly opened every
closet and box to determine his new wealth. Bonds,
mortgages, indentures and other documents lie
carelessly at his feet. To the extreme right we are
introduced to the tear ridden and pregnant Sarah
Young. She holds a wedding ring in her hand and is
accompanied by her fierce mother who carries love
letters in which Tom has promised his intent to
marry. Showing no remorse for his callous
seduction, Tom attempts to buy the mother off
with coin."