Hogarth, William (1697 London 1764). (Statuary's Inn Yard.) Engraving. Inscribed: Analysis of Beauty. Plate I. / Designed, Engraved, and Published by Wm. Hogarth, March 5^th 1753, according to Act of Parliament. 39 x 50.5 cm.

Hogarth Catalogue of the Tate Gallery, 1971/72, 191 + Hogarth Catalogue Zurich, 1983, 76, each with illustration.

The first sheet of Hogarth's artistic credo "Analysis of Beauty" that "stirred an immense sensation" (Th.-B.). – The statuary yard of his friend Henry Cheere at Hyde Park corner served as pattern of the place, "recalling Clito's yard which was the setting of Socrates' discussion of beauty in Xenophon's Memorabilia" (Cat. Tate Gallery). Among the different groups of figures that of judge Bathurst signing a death penalty (appearing again in "The Bench" of 1758) whose train is carried by a boy armed with a gallows. The multitude of the also anatomic small marginal pictures numbered consecutively as well.

Impression on buff paper from the plate reworked by the royal engraver James Heath (1757 London 1834) about 1822. "Even these impressions became relatively rare today though" (Art Gallery Esslingen 1970). – Upper right with weak waterstreak in the wide white margin, just affecting the outmost corner of the image. A quite minimal further one in the upper left paper corner. Two tiny tears in the outer margin backed acid-freely.
Offer no. 7,825 / EUR  138. (c. US$ 222.) + shipping

“ I am curious as to the history of this (original Ridinger printing-)plate (just I bought) and the others you have offered. Did you purchase them from the Ridinger estate (indirectly, indeed) or a private collector? These are truly rare one of a kind pieces ”

(Mr. L. A. F., October 28, 2003)