William Hogarth
English, 1697-1764
Hudibras' First Adventure, plate three from Hudibras
INV-1846
William Hogarth
English, 1697-1764February 1725/26
Hudibras' First Adventure, plate three from Hudibras
William Hogarth English, 1697-1764 →engravingprints and drawing
Date
February 1725/26
Medium
Etching and engraving in black on cream paper edge mounted on cream wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 24.6 × 33.4 cm (9 11/16 × 13 3/16 in.); Plate: 27.3 × 34.5 cm (10 3/4 × 13 5/8 in.); Primary support: 27.6 × 34.8 cm (10 7/8 × 13 3/4 in.); Secondary support: 36 × 45.9 cm (14 3/16 × 18 1/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Sara R. Shorey Endowment; purchased with funds provided by Phyllis Neiman and the Woman's Board in honor of Phyllis Neiman
William Hogarth illustrated the story of a sad-sack adventurer named Hudibras in twelve engravings. His source was Samuel Butler’s satirical, mock-heroic poem written in the vein of Cervantes and Rabelais. Ridiculing the puritan party’s attempts to overthrow the British monarchy during the Great Civil War of 1640, Butler’s poem exposes the hypocrisy and pretensions of the Presbyterians, Independents, and Zealots who hoped to establish themselves as leaders.
For Hudibras’s First Adventure, William Hogarth juxtaposed the grotesque and the heroic. The unsavory protagonist confronts an equally ugly mob of angry townspeople, complete with wooden legs and a sickly trained bear.
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