Hogarth painting. "Marriage A-la-Mode: 4, The Toilette" by William Hogarth (1697-1764), oil on canvas, c.1743.
Image details
Contributor:
IanDagnall Computing / Alamy Stock PhotoImage ID:
2J2BYP9File size:
78.5 MB (6 MB Compressed download)Releases:
Model - no | Property - noDo I need a release?Dimensions:
6000 x 4573 px | 50.8 x 38.7 cm | 20 x 15.2 inches | 300dpiDate taken:
31 March 2022More information:
This image could have imperfections as it’s either historical or reportage.
The fourth scene of Hogarth’s Marriage A-la-Mode takes place in the wife’s bedroom. Now a Countess, she is following the aristocratic French fashion of receiving visitors as she finishes getting dressed. A coral baby’s teether hanging from the back of her chair indicates that she has become a mother. The Countess does not look at herself in the mirror – she only has eyes for her lover Silvertongue, who offers her a ticket to a masquerade. An opera singer and his flautist entertain the Countess’s guests while a manservant offers them cups of chocolate. A little page boy holds a statue of Actaeon, whom the chaste goddess Diana transformed into a stag and then caused to be killed by his own hounds. The boy laughs as he points at Actaeon’s antlers, which represent the horns of a cuckold (the husband of a woman who commits adultery) as the Countess has proved her husband to be.