5. William Hogarth
(1697-1764)

Southwark Fair

(click on image to print)
Hogarth, Southwark Fair

Southwark Fair

Etching and engraving, 1733, Paulsen 131 only state, 365 x 470 mm. Fine, bright impression on laid paper with good margins, probably from a Boydell edition but possibly earlier. Hogarth, a major figure in British art in so many ways, begins the great age of the satirical print in Britain. Rarely conceived simply to be funny, his prints were at times harshly moralizing but, even when not, designed to show the foibles and fantasies of his age. There is so much going on in Southwark Fair that it would take pages to enumerate, particularly since references to actual people, theatrical plays and known pictures are rife within the image. Suffice it to say that there is virtually every form of public entertainment here, and not a few of vice, accident, freakishness, thievery, coquetry, belligerency, self-promotion and the like. Britain, or at least one aspect of it, in 1733.