7875 x 6352 px | 66,7 x 53,8 cm | 26,3 x 21,2 inches | 300dpi
Date de la prise de vue:
1760
Informations supplémentaires:
Cette image peut avoir des imperfections car il s’agit d’une image historique ou de reportage.
"A Woman Swearing a Child to a Grave Citizen" is a rare engraving after Hogarth’s painting. The engraving shows the chamber of Sir Thomas de Veil, the Bow Street Magistrate and fellow member of Hogarth’s Freemason’s Lodge. He sits at his desk, looking stern, and with a book entitled Law of Bastardy in front of him. Beside him sits his little daughter, teaching her spaniel to sit up. Before him stands a heavily pregnant young woman, being surreptitiously coached by a young man, probably the baby’s real father, while in the background is a rich, skinny old miser, being furiously upbraided by his wife. A satire on the law that if an unmarried pregnant woman came before a magistrate and swore on a bible that a particular man was the father of her child, without any further proof, he was obliged to pay an arbitrary fine and provide for the maintenance of the infant. This naturally caused many abuses, and led to whores hauling rich citizens (which they generally had never even met previously) before magistrates to claim maintenance for their bastard children. Hogarth never produced a print of this work during his lifetime. Thomas Cook's in the late 18th century was the first. This is an unsigned 19th Century version from the original by Hogarth.
