Early Georgian Portraits Catalogue

Painter and engraver; born in London, his father a schoolmaster imprisoned in the Fleet for debt; at seventeen apprenticed to a silversmith but from c.1720 made his own engravings culminating, 1726, in the illustrations to Samuel Butler's Hudibras; studied at Vanderbank's newly founded academy of art and began to paint, in the late 1720s, mainly small heads and conversations, then comic histories and life-size portraits; esteemed, in his lifetime, more as an engraver than a painter, he was a staunch opponent of old and foreign masters; published, 1753, The Analysis of Beauty. Married secretly, 1729, Jane, daughter of Sir James Thornhill, the artist and MP; a governor of the Foundling Hospital, 1739; he was appointed, 1757, sergeant painter to the King.

Referencesback to top

Ireland 1791-98
J. Ireland, Hogarth Illustrated, 1791-98.

Ireland 1794-99
S. Ireland, Graphic Illustrations of Hogarth, 1794-99.

Mallet 1967
J. V. G. Mallet, 'Hogarth's pug in porcelain', Victoria and Albert Museum Bulletin, III, 1967.

Mitchell (ed.) 1952
Hogarth's Peregrination, ed. C. Mitchell, 1952.

‘Mrs Hogarth's Collection', Burlington Magazine, LXXXV, 1944.

Nichols 1833
J. B. Nichols, Anecdotes of William Hogarth, 1833.

Oppé 1948
A. P. Oppé, The Drawings of William Hogarth, 1948.

Paulson 1971
R. Paulson, Hogarth: His Life, Art and Times, 1971.


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Kerslake, Early Georgian Portraits, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1977, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.