Marriage à-la-mode

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This article is about the series of pictures by William Hogarth; Marriage A-la-Mode is also the name of a play by John Dryden.

In 1743–1745 William Hogarth painted the six pictures of Marriage à-la-mode (National Gallery, London), a pointed skewering of upper class 18th century society. This moralistic warning shows the miserable tragedy of an ill-considered marriage for money. This is regarded by many as his finest project, certainly the best example of his serially-planned story cycles.

In Marriage à-la-mode, Hogarth challenges the ideal view that the rich live virtuous lives & gives heavy satire to the notion of arranged marriages. In each piece, he shows the young couple and their acquaintances and family at their worst: having affairs, drinking, gambling, fornicating and engaging in numerous other vices and sins. In the first of the series, he shows an arranged marriage between the son of bankrupt Earl Squanderfield and the daughter of a wealthy but miserly city merchant. In the second, there are signs that the marriage has already begun to break down. The husband and wife appear exhausted and disinterested in one another, amidst evidence of overindulgence the night before. An accountant leaves with a stack of unpaid bills, nimbly sidestepping an overturned chair (a recurring motif in the series).

The personalities and interests of the newlyweds, as well as their status in society, are revealed by the personal effects embellishing the scene, such as playing cards, a book of music and the likely sexually suggestive artwork hidden underneath the curtain in the other room. The third in the series, The Quack Doctor, shows the Count visiting an avaricious and seedy doctor with two women, to ascertain which of them gave him a sexual disease. Later, the Count catches his wife with her lover, and is fatally wounded by the scoundrel. As she comforts the stricken man, the murderer in his nightshirt makes a hasty exit through her bedroom window.

Finally the Countess poisons herself in her grief and poverty-stricken widowhood, after her lover is hanged at Tyburn for murdering her husband. The loss of their wealth and potential happiness is a clear moral lesson, exemplified by the sparse quarters of this final image (a stark contrast to the luxurious environs of the first one when the marriage was arranged). In these grimly reduced circumstances, her father removes her wedding ring as she swoons, appearing to think only of the monetary value. Hogarth thus gives a gloomy view of what he perceives to be the life of the upper classes, as well as the ultimate costs of a loveless arranged marriage.

These admirable pictures were at first poorly received by the public, to the great disappointment of the artist. He sold them to a Mr. Lane of Hillington for one hundred and twenty guineas. The frames alone had cost Hogarth four guineas each. So his initial remuneration for painting this valuable series was but a few shillings more than one hundred pounds. From Mr. Lane's estate, they became the property of his nephew, Colonel Cawthorn, who very highly valued them. In the year 1797 they were sold by auction at Christie's, Pall Mall, for the sum of one thousand guineas; the liberal purchaser was the late Mr. Angerstein. They now belong to the government, and are among the most attractive objects in the National Gallery in London.