“Hogarth the Draughtsman” at the British Museum

Our Vice Chairman, Sheila O’Connell, has put together a small display of Hogarth’s drawings in Room 90 as the British Museum’s contribution to the 250th anniversary of his death. It continues until December. This is a special opportunity to see how Hogarth worked from initial ideas to a finished print.

As Assistant Keeper of Prints & Drawings Sheila cares for the British Museum’s Hogarth works.  She  writes, ‘Only about 100 drawings by Hogarth survive and half of these are in the British Museum’s collection.

Hogarth normally created his paintings and prints directly on to canvas or copper plate without detailed preliminary studies on paper. The drawings displayed were created for particular circumstances and show a little known aspect of his work.’

Here we show three items from the BM collection for comparison, two preliminary drawings for Plate 6 of Industry and Idleness, “The industrious ‘prentice out of his time, and married to his Master’s daughter”.

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