William Hogarth
English, 1697-1764
Hudibras and the Lawyer, plate twelve from Hudibras
INV-1846
William Hogarth
English, 1697-1764February 1725/26
Hudibras and the Lawyer, plate twelve 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: 24.5 × 34.4 cm (9 11/16 × 13 9/16 in.); Plate: 27 × 35.3 cm (10 11/16 × 13 15/16 in.); Primary support: 27.2 × 35.6 cm (10 3/4 × 14 1/16 in.); Secondary support: 36.8 × 47.6 cm (14 1/2 × 18 3/4 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 here depicted Hudibras’s visit to a lawyer who encourages the knight to write a letter to the woman he is courting. Just as Hudibras is a play on the popular figure of the “heroic knight,” Samuel Butler used his past experience in law to satirize the lawyer. Hogarth translated Butler’s humorous critique into the engraving by showing a robed and wigged lawyer sitting in his office like a king on his throne. Hogarth’s engravings of Butler’s satirical epic summarize the social and political environment in England with the same cleverness and wit seen in his later works, including the Marriage à la Mode and A Harlot’s Progress.
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