Social Political & Satirical

25x35 cm

John Wilkes Esq.^r
Drawn from the life and etch'd in Aquafortis by Will.^m Hogarth.
Publish'd according to Act of Parliament May ye 16.1763.

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.

John Wilkes FRS (1725-1797) was an English journalist, Member of parliament and political agitator, magistrate, essayist and soldier.

 

Notoriously ugly, he is represented here in Hogarth’s engraving with his crossed eyes and protruding jaw, holding the cap of Liberty on the Staff of Maintenance with two editions of his publication The North Briton, numbers 17 and 45. In issue 45  Wilkes criticised  King George III’s speech endorsing the Paris Peace treaty of 1763 for which the King ordered warrants for the arrest of Wilkes and the publishers but at the court hearing Wilkes successfully claimed parliamentary privilege. In issue 17 Wilkes attacked Hogarth .

Waterstain upper left corner of the paper not affecting the plate area, otherwise clean. Plate size: 23x35cm. Paper size: 49x62cm.