Hogarth, William

Hogarth, William (1697-1764), painter and engraver, b. Smithfield, London.

William Hogarth served as an apprentice to a silversmith and at the age of twenty-one, became an engraver on his own.

He also studied art and later became a painter of portraits.

Then he began to do series of paintings which told stories. The best-known of these is A Rake's Progress which can be seen today in Sir John Soane's Museum, London.

Another series, Marriage a la Mode, is in the Tate Gallery, London.

Hogarth made engravings of these pictures and they sold in large numbers. So also did others which show us what life was like in England in the eighteenth century.

In 1757, King George II appointed Hogarth to be serjeant-painter to the Crown.

See William Hogarth Engravings by Hogarth