A Rake's Progress is a series of eight paintings by 18th century English artist William Hogarth. The canvases were produced in 1732–33 then engraved and published in print form in 1735. The series shows the decline and fall of Tom Rakewell, the spendthrift son and heir of a rich merchant, who comes to London, wastes all his money on luxurious living, prostitution and gambling, and as a consequence is imprisoned in the Fleet Prison and ultimately Bedlam.1 The original paintings are currently in the collection of the Soane Museum in London.
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Depictions
- In the first painting, Tom has come into his fortune on the death of his father. While the servants mourn, he is being measured for new clothes. He is also rejecting the hand of his pregnant maid, Sarah Young, whom he had promised to marry (she is holding his ring).
- In the second painting, Tom is at his morning levée in London, attended by musicians and other hangers-on, dressed in expensive costumes. Surrounding Tom from left to right: a music master; a fencing master; a painter; a dancing master; an architect; an ex-soldier offering to be a bodyguard; a bugler of a fox hunt club. At lower right is a jockey with a silver trophy.
- A wild party or orgy is under way at a brothel in the third painting. The whores are stealing the drunken Tom's watch. Already Tom has started wasting his father's money.
- In the fourth, he narrowly escapes arrest for debt as he travels in a sedan chair to a party at St. James's Palace to celebrate Queen Caroline's birthday (Saint David's Day). On this occasion he is saved by the intervention of Sarah Young, the girl he had earlier rejected.
- In the fifth, he attempts to salvage his fortune by marrying a rich but aged and ugly old maid at St Marylebone. In the background Sarah arrives holding her child while her indignant mother struggles with a guest.
- He pleads for the assistance of the Almighty in a gambling den in the sixth painting. Neither he nor the other obsessive gamblers seem to have noticed a fire breaking out behind them.
- All is lost by the seventh painting, and he is incarcerated in a the notorious Fleet debtor's prison. He ignores the distress of his womenfolk, and demands of money from the jailers: the loss of his mind is indicated by a telescope poking out of the barred window for celestial observation, and an alchemy experiment in the background.
- Finally, he ends his days in Bethlehem Hospital (Bedlam), London's celebrated mental asylum with only Sarah Young to comfort him. Some of the details in the pictures may appear disturbing to modern eyes, but were commonplace in Hogarth's day, e.g., the fashionably dressed women in the last painting who have come to the asylum as a social occasion, to be entertained by the bizarre antics of the inmates.
Later editions
Igor Stravinsky's 1951 opera The Rake's Progress, with a libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is loosely based on the story from Hogarth's paintings. In 1961, David Hockney created his own print edition version of The Rake's Progress and has also created stage designs for the Stravinsky Opera.
The 1946 RKO film Bedlam, produced by Val Lewton and directed by Mark Robson, was inspired by A Rake's Progress. Hogarth received a writing credit for the film.
The UK fund manager Bedlam Asset Management used the series throughout its 2006 Annual Report and Accounts.
The singer Steve Hogarth of the band Marillion co-wrote a song `The Rake's Progress' as an interlude on the Holidays in Eden album, released in 1991. "I called the section (between 'This Town' and '100 Nights') 'The Rakes Progress' in reference to the famous series of lithographs by my namesake, William Hogarth... Seems pretentious but it was a joke I couldn't resist."2
The paintings
 1 — The Heir |
 2 — The Levée |
 3 — The Orgy |
 4 — The Arrest |
 5 — The Marriage |
 6 — The Gaming House |
 7 — The Prison |
 8 — The Madhouse |
The engravings
 Plate 1 — The Young Heir Takes Possession Of The Miser's Effects |
 Plate 2 — Surrounded By Artists And Professors |
 Plate 3 — The Tavern Scene |
 Plate 4 — Arrested For Debt |
 Plate 5 — Married To An Old Maid |
 Plate 6 — Scene In A Gaming House |
 Plate 7 — The Prison Scene |
 Plate 8 — In The Madhouse |
See also
External links
References
- ^ Bindman, David. Hogarth, Thames and Hudson, 1981. ISBN 050020182X
- ^ Annotated lyrics (Marillion)
- ^ Ireland, John. Hogarth Illustrated, George Routledge and Sons, 1884. London
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