William Hogarth, A Harlot's Progress

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A Harlot's Progress

is a seminal work in Hogarth's development. It marks his engagement in a new genre, narrative comic history-painting, or “modern moral subjects”, as he describes them in his

Autobiographical Notes

, through which he established comedy and satire in art as respectable categories worthy of serious attention. It was in 1730 when, according to the eighteenth-century diarist of artists' lives, George Vertue, Hogarth stumbled, almost by accident, on this genre. He had been painting a whore and her servant in her garret in Drury Lane, when he hit upon the idea of tracing her previous and subsequent histories. The six paintings of

A Harlot's Progress

, including likenesses of well-known contemporary persons, were the result. These paintings became very popular and, with…

2565 words

Citation: Gordon, Ian. "A Harlot's Progress". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 July 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7146, accessed 19 March 2024.]

7146 A Harlot's Progress 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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