Time Smoking a Picture
Maker
(artist)
1697-1764
(engraver)
1697-1764
1697-1764
(engraver)
1697-1764
Title
Time Smoking a Picture
Date of Production
1761
Medium
medium : material : ink & support : material : paper
Dimensions
Height: 23 cm
Width: 18.5 cm
Width: 18.5 cm
Accession Number
G.1990.WL.2122
Mode of Acquisition
Witt Library, transfer, 1990
Credit
The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)
Copyright
Work in the public domain
Location
Not currently on display
Keywords
Label Text
Hogarth famously mistrusted collectors, connoisseurs and dealers. Obscure classical texts inscribed on the print challenge their taste for darkened Old Master paintings, while Time’s scythe pierces the canvas and ‘smokes’ the painting to age it artificially. Using mezzotint (a technique invented to imitate oil painting) to highlight the ‘Claudian’ landscape, Hogarth incorporates a satire within a satire. The print was originally issued as a subscription ticket for an engraving after one of his paintings.
Provenance
Information not yet known or updated
Exhibition History
Purpose and Process: British and French Printmaking 1600 - 1900, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 14/05/2014-20/06/2014
Hogarth and Piranesi: Engravings and etchings, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 09/03/1992-07/06/1992
Hogarth and Piranesi: Engravings and etchings, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 09/03/1992-07/06/1992
Literature
Bindman, David, Hogarth and his times: serious comedy, London and Berkeley 1997
no. 55 on p. 113
Paulson, Ronald, Hogarth's Graphic Works, 3rd rev. ed., London 1989
no. 208
ill. on p. 406 (state I)
no. 55 on p. 113
Paulson, Ronald, Hogarth's Graphic Works, 3rd rev. ed., London 1989
no. 208
ill. on p. 406 (state I)
Inscriptions
Inscription: inscription : printed : lower margin & recto : : As Statues moulder into Worth. P:W: / To Nature. to feel. Anon: //
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