Plate one, from A Harlot's Progress

Description

One of Hogarth’s four major print cycles of “modern moral subjects” based on his paintings, A Harlot’s Progress is a tale of innocence led astray. As indicated by its title, which subverts that of John Bunyan’s popular Christian allegory, the 1678 Pilgrim’s Progress, Hogarth’s project traces a country girl’s loss of purity and resulting imprisonment, illness, and death. Here the gullible girl, Moll Hackabout, is seduced by the promises of a historical madam, Mother Needham, who is dressed respectably to lure naïve London newcomers into her fashionable brothel.

Plate one, from A Harlot's Progress

William Hogarth

1732

Accession Number

228937

Medium

Engraving in black on ivory laid paper

Dimensions

Image: 30 × 37.5 cm (11 13/16 × 14 13/16 in.); Plate: 32 × 39.2 cm (12 5/8 × 15 7/16 in.); Sheet: 43.4 × 53.7 cm (17 1/8 × 21 3/16 in.)

Classification

engraving

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

The Amanda S. Johnson and Marion J. Livingston Fund