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Marriage A-la-Mode: 1. The Marriage Settlement

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42: 101: 253: 340:. The painting is rife with other contradictions: the wind is blowing the clothes one way but the Earl's wig the other; and one hand holds pagan symbols while the other a Christian emblem. In the top corner is a zephyr puffing the wind. Hogarth disliked such cherubs and is recorded as saying, "...an infant's head about two years old with a pair of duck's wings placed under its chin, supposed always to be flying about singing psalms." (See 213:, hang from the branches. The Earl is pointing to one hanging on the main branch, indicating the directness of his and the Viscount's descent. As a pointed addition, Hogarth has added a broken off branch – a previous marriage outside the nobility that was disowned – not something that would normally be displayed on a family tree. This could indicate that the disowned marriage was 302:
The mirror in which the Viscount is admiring himself is cut in two vertically by the painting's edge. This is a Hogarth device to indicate that the Viscount is only "half a man". Although indistinct in the painting, in the engraving it is clear that the reflection in this mirror is of Silvertongue
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The plot of the painting is the unmitigated greed of the two fathers, the Alderman and the Earl. The Alderman is wealthy to excess, and the Earl is heavily in debt but still retains his ancient title. The Alderman is desirous of becoming the grandfather to a noble son, and the Earl wants to ensure
374:'s head observes the scene and screams from an oval frame (as if even she is horrified by the scene before her). Normally the candlesticks would be to either side of the frame, but to heighten the absurdity they are central and therefore block a clear view of the Gorgon's face. This work may be 247:
The architect, holding the plans, is staring out the window at the unfinished house, waiting patiently for sufficient funds to allow work to restart. Some commentators have identified him as a lawyer along with Silvertongue here for the bargaining, stating that his facial features and posture
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The Earl clearly thinks a great deal of himself. He is sumptuously dressed and sits under a coroneted canopy in a posture of stereotypical arrogance. There are coronets everywhere, on his foot-stool, crutches, picture frames, and, ludicrously, in the engraving, on the side of one of the
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The bride is plainly dressed and looks bored, discontent and resigned to her fate. She is listlessly fidgeting with her wedding ring, which she has threaded on her handkerchief. She has as much interest in the Viscount as he has in
328:, surrounded by pictorial references to warfare. Jupiter is the Roman god of oaths and treaties and so Hogarth uses this as a deliberate irony as the portrait shows the Earl looking away from the proceedings right under his frame. 331:
The portrait is filled with impossible or ridiculous details that prove the artist's incompetence or flattering nature and the Earl's vanity or stupidity in accepting it: the young Earl is shown wearing the Burgundian - Spanish
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The forced, ill-matched and loveless marriage is mirrored bluntly by the bitch and dog chained together and equally uninterested in each other. In both cases the only thing the perpetrators care about is the issue of the
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Meanwhile, the soon to be married two are completely ignoring each other, and the bride is being courted by the lawyer. Myriad details show the true natures of the characters present, especially the Earl and his son.
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Silvertongue, the lawyer, is sharpening a quill and ingratiating himself with the bride by way of a whispered conversation. Silvertongue's name is not revealed until the final scene.
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The only other character who is given a name is the doctor in plate III. Also, Silvertongue is not named until the final plate, VI; his name is given here for convenience.
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The room is filled with evidence and forewarnings of the Earl's nature and the result of the marriage. The painting to the left of the window shows the Earl as a young
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All the main characters are introduced here, at the beginning of the story. Starting with the man under the canopy and moving across the scene there is:
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In short, the former seeks bourgeois moneys for empty, if ancient, purses; while the latter desires ancient and noble blood for his middle-class veins.
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The stable entrance is in the front facade and barely tall enough to accommodate a coach, and certainly not high enough to allow the coachman to pass.
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style which Hogarth despised and thought degenerate, and often made the butt of his satire. In this case the architecture is muddled, with three
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and effeminate to the last degree and made to look absolutely ridiculous. He has just returned from the Continent and is dressed in the
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on the ceiling as a symbol of the illogic of the Earl, such as his beginning a new building without ascertaining if he can afford it.
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style, with a giant black bow in his wig and red raised heels to his shoes (Hogarth hated the French, see for example Plate III and
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Visible through the window is the cause of the Earl's present financial pressure; he is having an extravagant new home built.
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The Viscount's health is clearly unsound; his legs are spindly and weak, while the black patch on his neck is a sign of
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The Earl is sitting with a bandaged foot resting on a low foot-stool, indicating he is suffering from
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his line is carried on, and is willing to put up with the common Alderman for the sake of his money.
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just handed to him by the bespectacled alderman, who is scrutinising the marriage contract.
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Later engraving of the painting, mirrored and with a clearer reproduction of many figures.
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On the table in front of the Earl is a pile of gold and bills of exchange – the bride's
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Lichtenberg, Georg (1970) . "1". In Wensinger, Arthur S. and W. B. Coley (ed.).
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Lichtenberg, Georg (1970) . "1". In Wensinger, Arthur S. and W. B. Coley (ed.).
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The other paintings on the walls all are of catastrophe, disaster or martyrdom:
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The man facing out the window, with his back to the scene, perhaps an architect.
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69.9 cm × 90.8 cm (27.5 in × 35.7 in)
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it would have provided a further nice comment on this perverse household
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Left hand wall, centre oval: immediately above the bride and groom a
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Between the merchant and the Earl stands an emaciated and threadbare
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Left hand wall, bottom right: David Kills Goliath also by Rubens.
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indicate his amazed disgust at what even he can tell is hideous.
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Viscount Squanderfield, the Earl's son — seated, on the far left
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is the first in the series of six satirical paintings known as
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provided by the merchant as part of the dowry with the other.
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On the ceiling the Red Sea closes over the Pharaoh's armies.
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The man standing at the table, perhaps the Earl's creditor
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Marriage A-la-mode: A Re-view of Hogarth's Narrative Art
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is stabbed to death (Most closely resembles the work by
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The Earl's son, the Viscount and the future groom, is
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The lawyer Silvertongue — standing, next to the bride
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The windows in the 207:William, Duke of Normandy 130: 84: 76: 66: 58: 48: 39: 34: 712:Beer Street and Gin Lane 303:and not of the Viscount. 256:A 1734 marriage contract 231:pillars supporting four 182:The painting is full of 989:The Marriage Settlement 752:Five Orders of Periwigs 164: 139:Earl/Lord Squanderfield 110:The Marriage Settlement 1046:The Analysis of Beauty 925:Humours of an Election 395:Right hand wall, top: 257: 105: 1111:Mary Edwards (Patron) 957:The Lady's Last Stake 829:Four Times of the Day 704:Industry and Idleness 255: 103: 688:The Enraged Musician 547:Hogarth on High Life 529:Hogarth on High Life 205:that commences with 893:Painter and his Pug 869:The Graham Children 799:A Harlot's Progress 376:Caravaggio's Medusa 125:Marriage settlement 978:Marriage A-la-Mode 909:Hogarth's Servants 901:The Gate of Calais 861:Taste in High Life 289:The Gate of Calais 258: 116:Marriage A-la-Mode 106: 1119: 1118: 1033: 1032: 837:The Distrest Poet 807:A Rake's Progress 680:The Distrest 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Index

Marriage à-la-mode: 1. The Marriage Settlement

William Hogarth
Oil on canvas
National Gallery
London

Marriage A-la-Mode
William Hogarth
Marriage settlement
satirical
gout
family tree
William, Duke of Normandy
coronet
morganatic
neo-Palladian
Corinthian
Ionic
basement

dowry
money lender
bills of exchange
foppish
French
The Gate of Calais
vain
narcissistic
syphilis

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