Sporting

39x32 cm

William Hogarth original print Pit Ticket / The Cock Pit.

Design'd and Engrav'd by Will.^m Hogarth. Published according to Act of Parliament Nov. 5^th 1750.
Pit Ticket. 
Published in The Works of William Hogarth, from the Original Plates restored by James Heath…London:
Printed for Baldwin & Cradock, Paternoster Row, by G. Woodall, Angel Court, Skinner
Street.
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.
This engraving depicts Lord Albermarle Bertie in the Royal Cockpit in birdcage Walk, St James's Park. The shadow of a debtor suspended in a basket is cast across the pit.
This print is from the Heath edition. There is a  water stain to the top right corner of the paper not affecting the printed area.