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"Marriage A-la-Mode: 4 The Toilette" is the fourth in the series of paintings painted by Hogarth to deride the upper class; the series is called "Marriage A-la-Mode".

The scene takes place after the death of the old Earl and the wife is now countess since her husband succeeded his father.
There are many guests in the room but her attenction is solely focused on Silvertongue, her lover, while she gets her hair dressed.

Silvertongue has in his hand a ticket and is pointing at a painting representing a masquerade, seemingly hinting to the countess that they can go there as lovers since they will have a mask on.

On her chair there is a rope of coral, used to help the growth off teeths in children, but there is no child in the picture; this suggests a lack of maternal instincts.

By painting this scene Hogarth wanted to criticize aristocracy; he represented the "grooming", a morning routine for nobles where they would often organize a reception, namely, having other people in their bedroom.
The hosting of a reunion in such an intimate place such as the bedroom, was in fact being increasingly seen as inappropriate and lewd.

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“Marriage A-la-mode: 1” is the first in Hogarth’s series of six paintings titled “Marriage A-la-mode” which derides the upper class. There is the Earl of Squander that is receiving guests in the bedroom of his town house. He is negotiating the marriage of his son to the daughter of a rich Alderman of the city of London. In the center of the painting there is the marriage settlement ( a large document in the Alderman’s hand). The Alderman’s family will acquire an aristocratic title trough the marriage.
The Earl will get his hands on ready cash, which has already been emptied out from the money bags onto the table. The Earl’s son and the Alderman’s daughter have no interest in each other or the marriage. A foxhound (cane da volpe)and bitch, chained together round the neck, anticipate the bonds of matrimony that will soon tie them together. The large black spot on the groom's (sposo) neck and his fashionable French dress suggest he has travelled a lot and he has picked up syphilis known as the French disease, on his travels.

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“Marriage A-la-mode 3” is set in the consulting room of a French doctor M Della Pillule. There is a little girl and a woman that’s probably the girl’s mother. The child stands between the viscount‘s open legs, suggesting that she’s his girl and they are both there to be treated for a sexually transmitted disease. The viscount seems to be protesting that the doctor’s pills don’t work. The pills are of black mercury, matching that black mark on the viscount’s neck that Hogarts uses to denote Syphilis. Also the doctor is infected by this disease. The skull (teschio) on the table is pocked (marked with pustules) with small black holes which indicate erosion caused by the disease. The doctor’s consulting room is full of objects which suggest that he practices as a physician, surgeon, barber-surgeon, apothecary and chemist. “Marriage A-la mode 3” Illustrates the disastrous consequences of marrying for money rather than love

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DESCRIPTION AND ANALISYS

She is just a Peddler, a  poor young woman who is tryng to sell her shrimps and fishes among the crowd in a street with a wide smile on her face.

She is probably a girl who Hogart saw and never forgot.

She would have probably sold anithing else, from political pamphlets to sex, just to get some money, as poor people  used to do  at that time.

But there is just one face in the painting, a face who attracted the artist for a second, a poor person whose Hogart dignifies joyful bearing

The fast brushwork makes us understand the pace of this society, his fast and never ending rithm with all the noises and cofusion, in which the girl distinguishes herself

HER BEAUTY

Hogarth's painting has a particular sense of beauty. Beauty was something that attracted and interested  Hogarth and, in 1753, he published his own theoretical work, The Analysis of Beauty, arguing for the curvy, unruly  beauty we encounter every day against the classic academical beauty.

Here Hogarth celebrates a flowing , expansive, lively London woman. Her dress, jaunty (easy, disinvolta) face, the basket balanced on her head, are glimpses of a loveliness  of the streets rather than the academy.

She is a personification of London.

He took tis painting in his private collection till he died.

WHERE IS IT? It is now a the national gallery of London

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"Marriage A-la-Mode:6 The Lady's Death" is the sixth and final canvas in the series of paintings painted by William Hogarth with the purpose of deriding the upper class.

In this scene we can see that the countess has died of self-poisoning,in fact she killed herself after coming to know that her lover, Silvertongue, died; we can assume this by looking at the empty vial and the letter on the floor.

The sick child affected by syphilis and rickets tends to her mother's body, and he is the only person in the room alongside the servant showing grief for the death of the countess.

The other characters present in the painting are minding their own business: the countess'father is removing her ring (it held value as it was a wedding ring made for a countess) and the apothecary is scolding a servant that handed the poison to the lady.

The irony of this scene resides in the children: as he is affected by a congenital handicap he will unlikely have children, and so the family tree that the earl so proudly displays in the first painting will come to an end; and the fault lies in the very people that had to protect it, the countess.
Since she killed herself all of the properties are now of the state, this is why the father tries to at least retrieve her wedding ring.

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The Graham Children is an oil painting completed by William Hogarth in 1742.

It is a group portrait depicting the four children of Daniel Graham, apothecary to King George II

The Graham Children is a conversation piece.

From left to right in the picture there are Thomas, born 1740 and dressed in skirts as was typical for small boys until they were breeched (breeching was a rite of passage), Henrietta, Anna Maria and Richard.

Infant mortality

in Britain it was high in the eighteenth century, in fact  Thomas died before the painting was completed.

This painting is full of references to death and the passing of time, it may be that the painting is a form of memorial for Thomas.

The children are painted life size, surrounded by furnishings that reflect the family's wealth. A bird cage is suspended from a cord and Thomas sits in an ornate baby cart with a fine silver fruit bowl at his feet. Richard plays a tune on a bird-organ, apparently making the bird sing, and attracting the cat behind him.

ANALYSIS

Hogarth turned what could have been a simple family scene, into a parable about the “passing of time and the vulnerability of innocence”. The picture plays with time with different parts moving at different speeds. The boys are captured in mid movement, like the cat and bird, while the girls seem to be completely still, so that the picture is both a snap shot of a fleeting moment and a static portrait simultaneously.

The oldest, Henrietta, holds the wrist of the youngest, perhaps indicating her future role as a mother, and looks at the spectator, indicating her awareness of the adult world that she will soon join. The other children, however, remain in the innocent bubble of childhood.

Thomas is fascinated by the cherries held by his sister, which in Christian iconography represent the fruit of Paradise and the antidote to original sin, and for Henrietta symbolise the challenges she will soon face as she enters adulthood.

Anna Maria practices the dance steps and curtseys that will be required of her in society, and Richard enjoys the musical performance of the finch (fringuello).

His bird-organ bears an image of Orpheus from Greek mythology, referring to the temporary harmony of man and nature that cannot last.

On the clock stands a small winged figure with a scythe and an hour glass representing the passage of time, while the smiling cat eyes the caged bird, referring to the fragility of life. A wooden bird adorns the baby cart, like the caged bird unable to take flight.

The bird depicted is a goldfinch (cardellino), which for centuries had symbolised the Redemption, appropriate here because of Thomas's death.

Hogarth included wit and pathos in the same scene by audaciously placing the predatory cat in one corner and the recently deceased child in the other. The reaction of Thomas's parents to this combination, which might have been seen as in poor taste, is unknown. The painting remained in Richard Graham's possession until at least .

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It represents an unhappy aristocratic couple. The girl looks tired, she has just woken up after a night of playing cards, one of her vices, while the boy seems disheveled (scomposto) and exhausted from a night in the city.

A dog takes a girl's cap from his left pocket, suggesting he may have spent the night with another girl. He also has a black spot on his neck, a symptom of syphilis, and his broken sword may symbolize impotence.

The girl seems unhappy about the marriage, but she may be unfaithful to her husband.

The room’s furniture reflects their unhappiness with a lack of aesthetic sensibility and discord between the couple. The painting gives a message of unhappiness and infidelity within their marriage.

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The scene is set at night by firelight, after a mask party. The Countess and her lover Silvertongue have taken a room above the Turk’s Head, she is dressed in her nightgown and cap, masks and clothes are on the floor.

During the night the Earl had entered the room, so Silvertongue had hit him in a deadly way and he was trying to escape from the window.

While the Countess was kneeling to the Earl to ask his forgiveness, the owner of the Turk’s Head entered the room with a guard and the staff of office to investigate the cause of the commotion.

The Countess’ cheeks are covered by her tears, her husband is near to death, her lover is a murderer and she has lost everything.