General Portraits

William Hogarth. 1764

Engraving by William Hogarth after his c.1757 painted self portrait originally entitled The Artist Painting the Comic Muse. Hogarth used the palte to serve as the frontispiece to bound volumes of his plates from 1764 following the re-engraving of his original frontispiece self portrait with his pug Trump  in 1763 to show an image satirising the poet Charles Churchill, The Bruiser.

William Hogarth (1697-1764), apprenticed as an engraver, became the most signifiant artist and printmaker of his time, his satirical caricatures and political cartoons establishing the genre. From 1730 Hogarth established his own business publishing and selling his own prints. After his death his plates passed to his wife Jane who continued issuing his prints until her own death in 1789. The plates were then acquired by publisher John Boydell and sold again, at the Boydell bankruptcy sale in 1818 to Baldwin & Cradock who began selling prints from 1820. Noted engraver James Heath was employed to strengthen some of the engraved lines and this final issue of 1822 is the last to use Hogarth's original engraved plates. The sixth and final state of the plate.

Waterstain upper left corner not affecting the plate area. Spotting to margins. Plate size: 36x40cm. Paper size: 48x62cm.