Interesting Sujet of the Execution of Sentence
Hogarth, William (1697 London 1764). Hudibras, Triumphant. The knight, an English Don Quixote, leads the captured one-legged fiddler to the stocks. Etching + engraving. (1726.) Inscribed: 10 (by the publisher) / Wm. Hogarth Inven. et Sculp., otherwise as above + 4 six-lined stanzas as subtext. 26.7 x 34.9 cm.
HUDIBRAS X. – Nagler 10-10; Hogarth Catalog Zurich, 1983, 4 (sic, see below) with ills. (1st state). – Impression on strong paper from the plate retouched by the royal engraver James Heath (1757 London 1834) about 1822 (“Even these impressions have become relatively rare today though”, Art Gallery Esslingen 1970; and Meyers Konv.-Lex., 4th ed., VIII [1888], 625: “A fine edition”, esteemed also already by contemporary collectors of the rank of for instance an A. T. Stewart [Catalog of the Stewart Collection, New York 1887, 1221, “fine plates”]). – INTERESTING SUJET OF THE EXECUTION OF SENTENCE .
HUDIBRAS
“ is a vulgarized (English) Don Quixote , a dewitted Rabelais ”
(Laaths, Geschichte der Weltliteratur, 1953, p. 375), a “satiric scourge” (Meyers Konv.-Lex., 4th ed., III, 693/I) on the politically just sacked Puritanism and the best-known work of its creator esteemed by Charles II,
SAMUEL BUTLER
(Strensham, Worcestershire, 1612/13 – London 1680), as result of his impressions in the employ of Cromwell’s Colonel Sir Samuel Luke, “at which religious and political sects were about” (Meyers). Remaining incomplete the first two parts of the epic were published in 1663/64, a third one in 1678, then, joined, long-lived through the centuries. In three cantos each
“ describing in rough, mostly eight-syllabic songs (later known as ‘hudibrastic verse’) the loosely connected, grotesque adventures of two Puritans, the knight Hudibras and his shield-bearer Ralpho. Hogarth has engraved two different sets of illustrations to this poem: twelve large, carefully executed engravings he has created on his own, independently of a publisher, and published in February 1726, and seventeen smaller ones which have more the character of woodcuts and presumably done before, but were published the following April only in a poem edition. These follow the course of the action while the large sheets only represent the decisive scenes with an abridgement as legend … Epic and pictures are an antiheroic satire on Puritanism and sectarianism ”
(Margrit Bachofen-Moser in Hogarth Catalogue Zurich, 1983, pp. 25 ff. illustrating the large version in partly differing arrangement).
The Hudibras set – Thieme-Becker judge – is “of decisive significance for Hogarth’s development.
Here lies the key to the understanding of the satirist H. ”
(Thieme-Becker XVII [1924], 300/II).
And Austin Dobson in the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1911 :
“ These (plates Hogarth) himself valued highly, and they are the best of his book illustrations. But he was far too individual to be the patient interpreter of other men’s thoughts, and it is not in this direction that his successes are to be sought … (And generally resuming) If we regard him – as he loved to regard himself – as ‘author’ rather than ‘artist’, his place is with the great masters of literature – with the Thackerays and Fieldings, the Cervantes and Molières. ”
Offer no. 14,731 / EUR 198. (c. US$ 266.) + shipping
– – – The same. Engraving by Thomas Cook (ca. 1744 – London 1818). Inscribed: Pl. X. / Hogarth pinxt. / HUDIBRAS. / T. Cook sculpt. / Published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, & Orme, March 1st. 1809. Subject size 13.4 x 17.3 cm.
Cook Cook “made his mark as Hogarth engraver, too (1795 ff.) whose complete work he has reproduced” (Thieme-Becker VII, 1912, p. 348/I) and whose original format he maintained in contrast to all later Hogarth editions, which moreover mostly don’t contain the consequently rarer Hudibras. Several works not published by Hogarth himself had been engraved by Cook for the first time as he met with approval by a contemporary connoisseur as Maximilian Speck von Sternburg, too. Here though present in Cook’s popular later, smaller version with the subtext being replaced by the series title. – Trimmed within the wide white platemark and chiefly in its outer part somewhat foxing.
Offer no. 14,732 / EUR 79. (c. US$ 106.) + shipping
Further single sujets of the set available in several qualities.
„ Ganz herzlichen Dank für Ihre netten Wünsche und die sehr interessante Lektüre (Wild + Hund 23/2008), über die ich mich sehr gefreut habe. Mein Glückwunsch zu diesem schönen Artikel über Ihr Ridinger Wirken und die damit verbundene und verdiente Anerkennung. An meiner ‚Ridinger – Sammlung‘ erfreue ich mich stets aufs Neue. Schon deshalb war die Anschaffung des Pompadour Bandes (1998) ein guter Kauf … Mit besten Grüßen, Ihr … “
(Herr O. v. L., 5. Januar 2009)