Art Institute of Chicago

Plate one, from A Harlot's Progress

William Hogarth

Date

1732

Medium

Engraving in black on ivory laid paper

Culture

England

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

One of Hogarth’s four major print cycles of “modern moral subjects” based on his paintings, A Harlot’s Progress is a tale of innocence led astray. As indicated by its title, which subverts that of John Bunyan’s popular Christian allegory, the 1678 Pilgrim’s Progress , Hogarth’s project traces a country girl’s loss of purity and resulting imprisonment, illness, and death. Here the gullible girl, Moll Hackabout, is seduced by the promises of a historical madam, Mother Needham, who is dressed respectably to lure naïve London newcomers into her fashionable brothel.

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