William Hogarth (1697–1764) and book illustration I: Hudibras, Quixote and the Littlecote House murals

M. A. Katritzky

doi:10.5817/TY2021-1-28

William Hogarth (1697–1764) and book illustration I: Hudibras, Quixote and the Littlecote House murals

Vol.24,No.1(2021)

M. A. Katritzky

https://doi.org/10.5817/TY2021-1-28

Stable URL (handle):
http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/143837

PDF

Abstract

This article progresses long-term researches on Hogarth and book history, the iconography of the skimmington and transnational receptions of Don Quixote, by introducing a substantial new group of images potentially illuminating Hogarth's lost activities as a young painter, before he turned 30 in 1727. Astoundingly, no previous research-based study of them exists. Unknown to Hogarth specialists and dismissed by art historians, they are in the painted room at Littlecote House. Within a complex decorative scheme broadly referencing themes of human folly and the cabinet of curiosities, two walls feature floor to ceiling composite murals uniting numerous episodes from the publications most significant for Hogarth's early career as a book illustrator: Cervantes' Don Quixote and its most successful English derivation, Samuel Butler's Hudibras. Butler's book-length poem is exceptionally significant: book-historically for its key role in copyright legislation and eighteenth-century British book illustration; art-historically for its central role in the early career of Hogarth, who published two sets of engravings illustrating Hudibras in 1726. Local historians attribute the Littlecote murals to unidentified amateur Dutch painters, working in the 1660s (when Hudibras was first published). Archive-based evidence first presented here confirms their dating not to the 1660s but the 1720s and supports Hogarth's presence at Littlecote House around 1724. This work is heavily indebted to the exemplary scholarship of two landmark publications of 2016, Elizabeth Einberg's authoritative catalogue of Hogarth's paintings (all post-1726) and Peter Black's ground- -breaking exploration of Hogarth and house decoration. I here re-visit Hogarth's early practice of book illustration and house decoration with reference to a canon of pre-1800 Hudibras images, newly enlarged by situating the substantial Littlecote Hudibras mural within this context and its associated visual, literary and book historical traditions. With reference to the new images and evidence first presented here, I ask: is Littlecote's painted room a rightly neglected pastiche? Or does it deserve closer scholarly attention? Perhaps even as an exceptional unrecognized British art treasure? Should Hogarth specialists now evaluate an entirely new possibility: whether the challenging pre-1727 gap in Hogarth's early career as a painter can be addressed by identifying his earliest paintings at Littlecote House?

Pages:
313–356

References

ANON. 1663. Hudibras the second part. London, 1663 (the "unauthorized" Part II).

ANON. 1727. The Devil to pay at St James's, or a full and true account of the most horrid and bloody battle between Madam Faustina and Madam Cuzzoni. London: A Moore, 1727.

ANON (pseudonymous: "No Connoisseur"). 1765. St. James's Chronicle. London, 11 May 1765.

ANON. 1824. A Catalogue of Authentic Portraits, painted in oil, on pannel and canvas, Miniatures, marble Busts &etc […] the whole of which are now offered for Sale, at the Prices affixed. London: H Rodd, 1824.

ANON. 1985. The Contents of Littlecote, Hungerford, Wiltshire. London: Sothebys, 1985, 1: 17th, 18th and 19th century English and Continental furniture, tapestries and works of art, paintings and watercolours and ceramics, 2: The Littlecote Armoury and the Library.

ALTICK, Richard D. 1985. Paintings from Books: Art and Literature in Britain, 1760–1900. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1985.

ANTAL, Frederick. 1947. Hogarth and his Borrowings. Art Bulletin 29:1 (1947): 36–48. | DOI 10.1080/00043079.1947.11408450

BARLOW, Jeremy. 2005. The Enraged Musician: Hogarth's musical imagery. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005.

BAKER, John. 1709. Advertisement to gentlemen. London: J. Baker, 1709 (single leaf broadsheet).

BENEZIT. 2011. Gucht, Benjamin van der", Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Available online at https://doi.org/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B00080249 Published online: 31 October 2011 (Accessed on 21 October 2020). | DOI 10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B00080249

BENTON, Michael. 2018. Hogarth's Children: Images of Temporality and Transience. Journal of Aesthetic Education 52 (2018): 3: 1–22. | DOI 10.5406/jaesteduc.52.3.0001

BERRY, Annetta. 2019. The Graham Children by William Hogarth (1697–1764). The immortalizing power of portraiture. British Art Journal 20 (2019): 1: 3–7.

BLACK, Peter. 2016. William Hogarth (1697–1764), Hudibras and house decoration. British Art Journal 17 (2016): 1: 43–53.

BIGNAMINI, Ilaria and Martin POSTLE. 1991. The Artist's Model: Its Role in British Art from Lely to Etty. Nottingham: Nottingham University Art Gallery and the Iveagh Bequest Kenwood, 1991.

BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX, Nicolas. 1708. Boileau's Lutrin: a mock-heroic poem. In six canto's. London: R. Burrough and J. Baker, 1708.

BOURIGNON, Antoinette. 1708. A collection of letters. London: R. Burrough and J. Baker, 1708.

BREWER, David A. 2000. Making Hogarth Heritage. Representations 72 (2000): 21–63. | DOI 10.2307/2902907

BRITTON, J. 1842. The Gentleman's Magazine. London, November 1842, 450.

BROWN, James. 1783. Bibliotheca topographica Britannica. No IX. Containing sketches of the history and antiquities of the parish of Stoke Newington, in the county of Middlesex. London: J. Nichols, 1783.

BUCKRIDGE, Bainbrigge. 1706. Mr Francis le Piper. In Roger de Piles. The Art of Painting and the lives of the painters […] To which is added, An Essay towards an English School of painters. London: J Nutt, 1706.

BURKE, John. 1836. Popham of Littlecott. In A genealogical and heraldic history of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland. London: Henry Colburn, 1836.

BURKE, Bernard. 1882. A genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, 2 vols. London: Harrison, 1882.

[BUTLER, Samuel]. 1663. Hudibras. written in the time of the late wars. London: Richard Marriot, 1663.

[BUTLER, Samuel]. 1664. Hudibras the second part by the Author of the first. London, 1664.

[BUTLER, Samuel]. 1678. Hudibras the third and last part / written by the author of the first and second parts. London: Simon Miller, 1678.

BUTLER, Samuel. 1709a. Hudibras. The First Part. Written in the time of the late wars. Corrected and amended, with several additions and annotations. London: Geo. Sawbridge and Matth. Hawkins, 1709.

BUTLER, Samuel. 1709b. Hudibras the Second part by the author of the first. Corrected, and amended with several additions and annotations. London: R. Chiswel, G Sawbridge, R Wellington and G Wells, 1709.

BUTLER, Samuel. 1709c. Hudibras the third and last part written by the author of the first and second parts. London: Thomas Horne, 1709.

BUTLER, Samuel. 1709/10. Hudibras: in three parts. Written in the time of the late wars. Corrected and amended. With several additions and annotations. Adorned with cuts, 3 vols. London: John Baker, 1709 [vol. II] & 1710 [vols. I, III].

BUTLER, Samuel. 1710. Hudibras. In three Parts. Written in the time of the late Wars. Corrected and amended, with Additions. To which is added, Annotations to the third Part, with an exact Index to the whole; never before printed. Adorned with cuts. London: R. Chiswel, J. Tonson, T. Horne, and R. Willington, 1710.

BUTLER, Samuel. 1712. Hudibras. In three parts. Written in the time of the late wars. To this edition is added, annotations to the third part, with a compleat index to the whole; never before Printed. Illustrated with eighteen Historical Copper cutts, beside the author's effigies; all neatly Engrav'd by the best Artists. London: George Sawbridge, 1712.

BUTLER, Samuel. 1716. Hudibras. In three parts. Written in the time of the late wars. Corrected and amended: with additions. To which is added annotations to the third part, with an exact index to the whole; Never before Printed. Adorn'd with cuts. London: T. Horne, J. Walthoe, J. Nicholson, B. Took, D. Midwinter, J. Tonson, B. Cowse, and M. Wellington, 1716.

BUTLER, Samuel. 1720. Hudibras. In three parts. Written in the time of the late wars. Corrected and amended: with additions. To which is added annotations, with an exact index to the whole. Adorn'd with cuts. London: D. Browne, T. Horne, J. Walthoe, […], J. Tonson [… et al.], 1720.

BUTLER, Samuel. 1726. Hudibras. In three parts. Written in the time of the late wars. Corrected and amended: with additions. To which is added annotations, with an exact index to the whole. Adorn'd with a new set of cuts, design'd and engrav'd by Mr. Hogarth. London: J. Tonson, B. Motte et al., 1726.

CAMPBELL, Robert. 1747. The London Tradesman. London: T Gardner, 1747.

CAST, David. 2020. Chéron, Louis (1655–1725). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Available online at https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/5221. Retrieved 11 October 2020. | DOI 10.1093/ref:odnb/5221

CERVANTES, Miguel de. 1687. The history of the most renowned Don Quixote of Mancha and his trusty squire Sancho Pancha now made English according to the humour of our modern language and adorned with copper plates. By J.P. London: William Whitwood, 1687.

CERVANTES, Miguel de (ed. John Carteret, Earl of Granville). 1738. Vida y hechos del ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, 4 vols. London: Tonson, 1738.

CERVANTES, Miguel de. 1818. Don Quixote de la Mancha. London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1818.

CHEN, Ching-Jung. 2009. Tea parties in early Georgian conversation pieces. British Art Journal 10 (2009): 1: 30–39.

CLAYTON, Timothy. 1997. The English Print 1688–1802. New Haven/London: Yale, 1997.

CLAYTON, Timothy. 2004. Vandergucht, Gerard (1696/7–1776). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Available online at https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/28072. Retrieved 11 October 2020. | DOI 10.1093/ref:odnb/28072

CLAYTON, Timothy. 2008. Overton family (per. c. 1665–c. 1765). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Available online at https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/64998. Retrieved 11 October 2020. | DOI 10.1093/ref:odnb/64998

COWLEY, Robert L.S. 2018. William Hogarth's family-pieces and his moral subjects: Relationships and interrelationships. British Art Journal 19 (2018): 3: 3–19.

CROFT-MURRAY, Edward. 1960–1962. Decorative Painting in England 1537–1837, 2 vols. London: Country Life, 1960–1962.

CUST, L. H. revised by Arianne BURNETTE. 2004. Whood, Isaac (1688/9–1752). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Available online at https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/29340. Retrieved 11 October 2020. | DOI 10.1093/ref:odnb/29340

D'AULNOY, Madame. 1708. Secret memoirs of the Duke and Dutchess of O:::::. London: S. B. R. Burrough and J. Baker, 1708.

DEBRETT, John. 1823. The peerage of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in two volumes […] Volume I, England. London: Woodfall, 1823.

DILLARD, Leigh G. 2011. Drawing outside the book: parallel illustration and the creation of a visual culture. In Christina Ionescu (ed.). Book illustration in the long eighteenth century: reconfiguring the visual periphery of the text. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2011: 195–242.

DOBSON, Austin. 1891. William Hogarth. London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1891.

EGERTON, Judy. 2004. Vanderbank, John (1694–1739), painter and draughtsman. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography//. Available online at https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/28067. Retrieved 11 October 2020. | doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28067 | DOI 10.1093/ref:odnb/28067

EINBERG, Elizabeth. 2016. William Hogarth, A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings. London/New Haven: Yale, 2016.

[FIELDING, Henry]. 1731. The Tragedy of Tragedies; or, the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great. London: J. Roberts, 1731.

FOSS, Arthur and Rosemary JOEKES. 1980. Country House Treasures. London: Book Club Associates, 1980.

GOMEZ-AROSTEGUI, H. Tomas. 2010. The Untold Story of the First Copyright Suit under the Statute of Anne in 1710. Berkeley Technology Law Journal 25 (2010): 3: 1248–1350.

HADFIELD, Miles. 1969. A Book of Country Houses. London: Country Life, 1969.

HALLETT, Mark. 1999. The Spectacle of Difference: Graphic Satire in the Age of Hogarth. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.

HAMLETT, Lydia. 2013. Sublime History: Louis Chéron's Vulcan Catching Mars and Venus in his Net, Henry Gibbs's Aeneas and his Family Fleeing Burning Troy and Godfrey Kneller's Elijah and the Angel. In Nigel Llewellyn and Christine Riding (eds.). The Art of the Sublime. Tate Research Publication, January 2013, Available online at https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/lydia-hamlett-sublime-history-louis-cherons-vulcan-catchingmars-and-venus-in-his-net-r1138668. (accessed 28 October 2020).

HAMLETT, Lydia. 2020. Mural Painting in Britain 1630–1730: Experiencing Histories. Abingdon / New York: Taylor & Francis, 2020.

HAMMELMANN, H. A. 1969. John Vanderbank's 'Don Quixote'. Master Drawings 7 (1969): 1: 3–15 and 65–74.

HOGARTH, William. 1772. The Analysis of Beauty, Written with a View of Fixing the Fluctuating Ideas of Taste, a New Edition. London: Mrs Hogarth, 1772.

HOPKINS, Lisa. 1994. A source for John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. Notes and Queries 41 (1994): 4: 520.

HUBBARD, Sue. 2005. Pictures of Innocence: Children in 18th-century Portraiture. The Independent. London: July 25, 2005.

IRELAND, John. 1791. Hogarth Illustrated, 2 vols. London: Boydell, 1791.

KATRITZKY, M. A. 2014. Historical and literary contexts for the Skimmington: impotence and Samuel Butler's 'Hudibras'". In Sara F. Matthews-Grieco (ed.). Cuckoldry, Impotence and Adultery in Europe, 15th–17th Century. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014.

KATRITZKY, M. A. 2020. London and The Hague, 1638: Performing quacks at court. In M. A. Katritzky and Pavel Drábek (eds.). Transnational Connections in Early Modern Theatre. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020: 114–138.

KATRITZKY, M. A. "William Hogarth". William Hogarth (1697–1764) and book illustration II: Visualizing "Otherness" in pre-Victorian images of Shakespeare's Caliban. In Sandra Pietrini (ed.). Shakespeare's Characters Transposed: Iconography, Adaptations, Cultural Exchanges and Staging. In press.

LAMB, Charles. 1828. Blakesmoor in H——shire. In Elia, essays which have appeared under that signature in the London Magazine. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Carey, 1828: 170–178.

LAMB, Charles. 1852. On the genius and character of Hogarth. In Charles Lamb. The works of Charles Lamb. London: Edward Moxon, 1852: 540–549.

LAMB, Charles and Thomas Noon TAULFORD. 1855. The works of Charles Lamb with a sketch of his life, 2 vols. New York: Harper, 1855.

LAMBIRTH, Andrew. 2005. The child in time. The Spectator 297 (London: Apr 9, 2005) 9218: 49–50.

LEES-MILNE, James. 2008. Diaries 1984–1997, abridged and introduced by Michael Bloch. London: John Murray, 2008.

LOCKMAN, J. 1731. Travels of Mr. John Gulliver, Son to Capt. Lemuel Gulliver. London: Harding, 1731.

MACKENZIE, Raymond N. 2008. Tonson, Jacob, the elder (1655/6–1736). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Available online at https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/27540. Retrieved 11 October 2020. | DOI 10.1093/ref:odnb/27540

MALAN, Reverend Alfred Henry. 1895. Littlecote. The Pall Mall Magazine 6 (1895): 25: 5–18.

MARKS, Arthur S. 2008. Hogarth's Mackinen Children. British Art Journal 9 (2008): 1: 38–56.

MILLER, James. 1730. The humours of Oxford, a comedy. London: J Watts, 1730.

MOBEY, Pauline. 2011. Littlecote lives and legends: The story of a great estate and its famous families. People & Places, 2011.

NICHOLS, John. 1785. Biographical anecdotes of William Hogarth with a catalogue of his works, 3rd edition. London: John Nichols, 1785.

NICHOLS, John. 1818. Illustrations of the literary history of the eighteenth century consisting of authentic memoirs and original letters of eminent persons. London: Nichols and Bentley, 1818.

NICHOLS, John Bowyer (ed.). 1833. Anecdotes of William Hogarth, Written by Himself. London: J B Nichols, 1833.

OLDFIELD, John. 1738. Advertisement concerning the Prints. In CERVANTES 1738: I, xxv–xxxii.

OPPÉ, Adolf Paul. 1950. English Drawings: Stuart and Georgian Periods. In the Collection of His Majesty The King at Windsor Castle. London: Phaidon Press, 1950.

PARDO, Pedro Javier. 2020. From Hispanophobia to Quixotephilia: The Politics of Quixotism in the British Long Eighteenth Century. In Yolanda Rodríguez Pérez (ed.). Literary Hispanophobia and Hispanophilia in Britain and the Low Countries (1550–1850). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020.

PEVSNER, Nikolaus and Bridget CHERRY. 1975. The Buildings of England: Wiltshire. New Haven/London: Yale, 1975.

RETFORD, Kate. 2000. Family and familiarity: the domestic sphere in eighteenth-century English visual culture, 2 vols. PhD thesis 2000.

RETFORD, Kate. 2010. A Death in the Family: Posthumous Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century England. Art History 33 (2010): 1: 74–97. | DOI 10.1111/j.1467-8365.2009.00717.x

SACHEVERELL, Henry. 1710. The speech of Henry Sacheverell, D.D. upon his impeachment. London: J. Baker, 1710.

SCOTT, Walter. 1813. Rokeby; a poem. Edinburgh: J Ballantyne and London: Longman et al, 1813.

SLOAN, Kim. 2015. Sir Hans Sloane's Pictures: The Science of Connoisseurship or the Art of Collecting? Huntington Library Quarterly 78 (2015): 2: 381–415.

SMITH, John Thomas. 1829. Nollekens and his times, 2 vols. London: Henry Colburn, 1829.

SPENSER, Edmund. 1590. Faerie Queene. London: William Ponsonbie, 1590.

STEPHENS, F G. 1873. Hudibras. Notes and Queries 277 (1873): 332.

THOMSON, Oliver. 1994. Rule Britannia: An analysis of the propaganda which fuelled the wave of belligerent nationalism in Great Britain from 1719 to 1739. PhD thesis 1994. Available online at http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3585/.

VANDERBANK, John and Joseph SYMPSON. 1729. Twenty five actions of the manage horse, engrav'd by Josephus Sympson, from original drawings of Mr. John Vanderbanck: […] with short Remarks on some Parts of Horsemanship. London: J. Sympson and Andrew Johnston, 1729.

VIDEO [John C Conybeare]. 1874. The East Haddon Hogarths. The Art-Journal 36 (1874): 265–268.

WATNEY, Vernon James. 1900. Littlecote. London: Hatchard, 1900.

WHEATLEY, Henry B. 1909. Hogarth's London, pictures of the manners of the eighteenth century. London: Constable, 1909.

[WILKES, John]. 1769. Numb.XVII. Saturday, September 25, 1762. In The North Briton, from No. I. to No. XLVI. Inclusive […] Corrected and revised by a friend to civil and religious liberty. London: W. Bingley, 1769.

Metrics