A Scene from The Beggar's Opera

1712–1764 · Luogo di lavoro

London

1727 – 28 May 1728

A lawsuit against the weaver Morris: “an engraver, and no painter”

In 1727 the tapestry worker Joshua Morris commissioned from Hogarth a design for “The Element of Earth”, but on hearing that he was “an engraver, and no painter” refused the finished work. Hogarth sued him in the Westminster court and won: judgment was given in his favour on 28 May 1728.

until 1728

Initiated as a Freemason

Before 1728 Hogarth was initiated as a Freemason in the lodge at the Hand and Apple Tree Tavern in Little Queen Street, and later belonged to the Carrier Stone Lodge and the Grand Stewards’ Lodge; for the latter he designed the “Hogarth Jewel”, the badge of the Lodge’s Master (the original is now in storage and a replica is worn by the present Master). Freemasonry is also a theme of “Night”, the fourth print of the “Four Times of the Day”.

23 March 1729

A secret wedding to Jane Thornhill

Not hoping for Sir James’s consent — he saw the match as unequal, Hogarth being a rather obscure artist then — William and Jane married in secret at Paddington Church. Jane and her mother helped to reconcile him with his father-in-law: they hung the first paintings of “A Harlot’s Progress” in his house, and on learning the artist’s name Sir James admitted that a man who could produce such pictures could also keep a wife without a dowry.