First Stage of Cruelty, from the series The Four Stages of Cruelty
William Hogarth, English, 1697 - 1764
1751
Etching on paper
Image: 14 × 11 3/4 in. (35.5 × 29.8 cm)
Plate: 15 1/4 × 12 11/16 in. (38.7 × 32.2 cm)
Sheet: 22 3/16 × 16 5/8 in. (56.4 × 42.3 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Jean and Adolph Weil Jr. 1935 Fund
2007.62.1
Geography
Place Made: England, United Kingdom, Europe
Period
1600-1800
Object Name
Research Area
Not on view
Inscriptions
Signed, in plate, lower left margin: Design'd by W. Hogarth; dated, lower center margin: Published according to Act of Parliament Feb.1.1751.; titled, in plate, upper center margin: FIRST STAGE OF CRUELTY.; inscribed, in plate, center: Thin Nero [as caption to drawing of hanged man]; inscribed, in plate, center: S:G [in patch on arm of man torturing dog]; inscribed, in plate, lower left margin: While various Scenes of sportive Woe / The Infant race employ, / And tortur'd Victims bleeding shew / The Tyrant in the Boy.; inscribed, in plate, lower center margin: Behold! a Youth of gentler Heart, / To spare the Creature's pain / O take, he cries -- take all my Tart, / But Tears and Tart are vain.; inscribed, in plate, lower right margin: Learn from this fair Example -- You / Whom savage sports delight, / How Cruelty disgusts the view / While Pity charms the site.; inscribed, in plate, lower right margin: Price 1.s [s is superscript]
Course History
REL 37, Animal Rights in Religion, Catherine Randall, Winter 2013
ENGL 20, Age of Satire, Alysia Garrison, Winter 2014
REL 37, Animal Rights in Religion, Catherine Randall, Winter 2014
COLT 49, Beasts on the Page, Paul Carranza, Spring 2014
Provenance
Andrew Edmunds Prints & Drawings, London, England; sold to present collection, 2007.
Catalogue Raisonne
Paulson, Ronald. Hogarth's Graphic Works. London: Yale University Press, 1965, no. 187 i/ii.
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