William Hogarth, 'Marriage A-la-Mode: 1, The Marriage Settlement', about 1743
About the work
Overview
This is the first in Hogarth’s series of six paintings titled Marriage A-la-Mode. They were painted to be engraved and then sold after the engravings were finished.
The Earl of Squander is negotiating the marriage of his son to the daughter of a rich Alderman of the City of London. The Alderman’s family will acquire an aristocratic title through the marriage; the Earl will get his hands on ready cash, which has already been emptied out from the money bags onto the table.
The Earl’s son and Alderman’s daughter have no interest in each other or the marriage. A foxhound and bitch, chained together round the neck, anticipate the bonds of matrimony that will soon tie them together. The large black spot on the groom’s neck and his fashionable French dress suggest he has picked up syphilis, known as the French disease, on his travels.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- Marriage A-la-Mode: 1, The Marriage Settlement
- Artist
- William Hogarth
- Artist dates
- 1697 - 1764
- Part of the series
- Marriage A-la-Mode
- Date made
- about 1743
- Medium and support
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 69.9 × 90.8 cm
- Inscription summary
- Inscribed
- Acquisition credit
- Bought, 1824
- Inventory number
- NG113
- Location
- Room 34
- Collection
- Main Collection
- Previous owners
- Frame
- 18th-century English Frame
Provenance
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Judy Egerton, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The British Paintings’, London 2000; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Exhibition history
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2019Hogarth: Place and ProgressSir John Soane's Museum9 October 2019 - 5 January 2020
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2021Hogarth and EuropeTate Britain1 November 2021 - 20 March 2022
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2023Hogarth’s Britons: Succession, Patriotism, and the 1745 Jacobite RebellionDerby Museums and Art Gallery10 March 2023 - 4 June 2023
Bibliography
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1742H. Fielding, The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and of His Friend Mr Abraham Adams, London 1742
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1746A. Rouquet, Lettres de Monsieur ** à un de ses amis à Paris, pour lui expliquer les estampes de Monsieur Hogarth, London 1746
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1766R.J. Trusler, Hogarth Moralized. Being a Complete Edition of Hogarth's Works, London 1766
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1781J. Nichols, Biographical Anecdotes of William Hogarth and a Catalogue of His Works Chronologically Arranged With Occasional Remarks, London 1781
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1791J. Ireland, Hogarth Illustrated, London 1791
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1792Christie, Manson & Woods, A Catalogue of the Reserved, Capital, and Valuable Part of the Genuine Collection of Pictures, Consigned from Paris, London, 10 March 1792
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1796Christie, Manson & Woods, A Catalogue of a Valuable Collection of Italian, French, Flemish, and Dutch Pictures: Principally the Property of a Nobleman, Brought from his Grace's Seat in the Country, London, 21 May 1796 - 23 May 1796
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1797G.C. Lichtenberg, Ausführliche Erklärung der Hogarthischen Kupferstiche, mit verkleinerten aber vollstandingen Copien derselben von E. Riepenhausen, Göttingen 1797
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1797J. Christie, A Catalogue of that Most Capital and Matchless Set of Originals of the Marriage a la Mode, the Chefs d'Oeuvres of the Immortal Hogarth, in the Most Perfract State of Preservation, London, 10 February 1797
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1808J. Nichols and G. Steevens, The Genuine Work of William Hogarth, with Biographical Anecdotes, 3 vols, London 1808
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1811C. Lamb, 'On the Genius and Character of Hogarth', in L. Hunt (ed.), Reflector, London 1811
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1811C. Lamb, 'On the Genius and Character of Hogarth', Reflector, II/3, 1811, pp. 61-77
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1818Hansard's Debates, 1795-7, vol. 32, London 1818
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1823J. Young, A Catalogue of the Celebrated Collection of Pictures of the Late John Julius Angerstein, Esq: Containing a Finished Etching of Every Picture, and Accompanied with Historical and Biographical Notices, London 1823
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1824W. Hazlitt, 'On Hogarth's "Marriage A-la-mode"', London Magazine, 1824
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1828H. Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England, with Some Account of the Principal Artists, and Incidental Notes on Other Arts, ed. J. Dallaway, 5 vols, London 1828
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1843W. Hazlitt, Criticisms on Art and Sketches of the Picture Galleries of England with Catalogues of the Principal Pictures, London 1843
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1843W. Hazlitt, 'On Hogarth's Marriage A-la-Mode', in W. Hazlitt (ed.), Criticisms on Art, and Sketches of the Picture Galleries of England, London 1843, pp. 143-51
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1854G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being and Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss. […], vol. 2, trans. E. Eastlake, London 1854
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1868T. Gautier, 'William Hogarth', L'Artiste, 1868, pp. 155-72
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1877F.G. Stephens, Catalogue of Prints and Personal Satires, London 1877
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1882H. Fielding, The Dramatic Works of Henry Fielding, ed. L. Stephen, vol. 8, Love in Several Masques, ed. L. Stephen, London 1882
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1930W.T. Whitley, Art in England 1821-1837, Cambridge 1930
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1947F. Antal, 'Hogarth and His Borrowings', Art Bulletin, XXIX/1, 1947
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1948R.E. Moore, Hogarth's Literary Relationships, Minneapolis 1948
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1948A.P. Oppé, The Drawings of William Hogarth, Oxford 1948
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1949E. Croft-Murray and H. Phillips, 'The Whole Humours of a Masquerade', Country Life, 1949, pp. 672-5
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1952H. Kurz, 'Italian Modes of Hogarth's Picture Series', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XV, 1952, pp. 136-63
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1953J. Hadfield (ed.), The Thirteenth Issue of the Saturday Book, London 1953
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1953E.K. Waterhouse, Painting in Britain 1530-1790, London 1953
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1955W. Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, ed. J. Burke, Oxford 1955
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1959Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: British School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1959
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1961J.H. Hexter, Reappraisals in History, London 1961
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1964L. Namier, 'BECKFORD, William (1760-1844), of Fonthill, Wilts.', in History of Parliament Trust (ed.), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social & Local History, London 1964-, 1754-1790, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/beckford-william-1760-1844
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1970A.S. Wensinger and W.B. Coley (eds), Hogarth on High Life: The Marriage à la Mode Series from Georg Christoph Lichtenberg's Commentaries, trans. A.S. Wensinger and W.B. Coley, Middletown Conn 1970
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1973D. Kunzle, The Early Comic Strip, Berkeley 1973
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1978M. Webster, Hogarth, London 1978
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1980National Gallery, 'Pictures Cleaned and Restored in the Conservation Department of the National Gallery, March 1980 - December 1980', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, V, 1981
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1980C. Lamb, 'On the Genius and Character of Hogarth', in R. Park (ed.), Lamb as a Critic, London 1980, pp. 315-34
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1982D. Bomford and A. Roy, 'Hogarth's "Marriage A-la-mode"', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, VI, 1982, pp. 42-68
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1983R.L.S. Cowley, Marriage A-la-Mode: A Review of Hogarth's Narrative Art, Manchester 1983
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1983P. Rogers (ed.), Jonathan Swift: The Complete Poems, New Haven 1983
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1983L. Bertelsen, 'The Interior Structure of Hogarth's "Marriage A-la-mode"', Art History, VI/2, 1983, pp. 131-42
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1984D. Sutton, 'Aspects of British Collecting, III.XII: A Wealth of Pictures', Apollo, CXIX/267, 1984, pp. 346-56
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1985O. Impey and A. MacGregor (eds), The Origins of Museums: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe, Oxford 1985
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1986T. Castle, Masquerades and Civilisation: The Carnivalesque in Eighteenth-Century English Culture and Fashion, Stanford 1986
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1987D. Dabydeen, Hogarth's Blacks: Commentaries and Catalogues, Athens, Georgia 1987
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1987R. Simon, The Portrait in Britain and America: With a Biographical Dictionary of Portrait Painters 1680-1914, Oxford 1987
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1988K. Arndt, William Hogarth: Der Kupferstich als moralische Schaubühne (exh. cat. Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, 4 September -1 November 1988; Museum Wilhelm Busch, 15 March - 17 May 1987), Stuttgart 1988
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1989R. Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works, 3rd revised edn, London 1989
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1990R.S. Morton, 'Syphilis in Art and Entertainment in Four Parts. Part 3: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries', Genitourinary Medicine, LXVI/3, 1990
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1990R.S. Morton, 'Two Minutes with Venus: Two Years with Mercury: Mercury as an Antisyphilitic Chemotherapeutic Agent', Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, LXXXIII/6, 1990, pp. 392-5
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1991R. Paulson, Hogarth, New Brunswick 1991
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1992G. Beard, The Complete Gentleman: Five Centuries of Aristocratic Life, New York 1992
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1992J.T. Hayes, British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, Washington 1992
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1992N.F. Lowe, 'Hogarth, Beauty Spots, and Sexually Transmitted Diseases', British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, XV/1, 1992, pp. 71-9
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1993F. Haskell, History and Its Images: Art and the Interpretation of the Past, New Haven 1993
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1993N. McWilliam, Hogarth, London 1993
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1993C. Saumarez Smith, Eighteenth-Century Decoration: Design and the Domestic Interior in England, London 1993
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1993S. Sidlauskas, 'Resisting Narrative: The Problem of Edgar Degas's "Interior"', Art Bulletin, LXXV/4, 1993, pp. 671-96
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1993National Gallery, Pictures in Pictures (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 14 July - 19 September 1993), London 1993
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1994E. Langmuir, The National Gallery Companion Guide, London 1994
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1994J. Starobinski, L'invention de la liberté, Geneva 1994
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1995A. Meyer, 'Re-Dressing Classical Statuary: The Eighteenth-Century "Hand-in-Waistcoat" Portrait', Art Bulletin, LXXVII/1, 1995, pp. 45-63
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1995J. Simon, 'The Account Book of James Northcote', The Walpole Society, LVIII, 1996, pp. 21-125
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1995P. De Voogd, 'Generation in William Hogarth's Marriage a-la-mode', in Les âges de la vie en Grande-Bretagne au XVIIIe siècle: Actes du colloque décembre 1990 et décembre 1991, Paris 1995, pp. 47-55
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1995N. MacGregor, 'Les problèmes de la création d'un musée national au XVIIIe siècle en Angleterre', in Les Musées en Europe à la veille de l'ouverture du Louvre, Paris 1995, pp. 415-38
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1996I. Hislop, 'Picture Choice: "Marriage A-la-mode" 1: The Marriage Contract', National Gallery News, 1996
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1996P. Wardle, 'Een toilet kleed met kant: Kanttekeningen bij de textilia voor de toilettafel in de late zeventiende en achttiende eeuw', Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum, XLIV/1, 1996, pp. 27-36, 71-4
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1996M.K. Lindberg, 'Dramatic Analogues in William Hogarth's Marriage A-la-Mode', in J. Moller (ed.), Hogarth in Context: Ten Essays and a Bibliography, Marburg 1996, pp. 72-86
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1997M. Acton, Learning to Look at Paintings, London 1997
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1997J.V. Field and F.A.J.L. James, Science in Art: Works in the National Gallery That Illustrate the History of Science and Technology, Stanford in the Vale 1997
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1997J. Richardson, Looking at Pictures: An Introduction to Art for Young People Through the Collection of the National Gallery, London 1997
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1997Anon., 'Hogarth's "Marriage A-la-mode"', National Gallery News, 1997
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1997J. Egerton, 'The Character of the Countess', National Gallery News, 1997
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1997M. Postle, 'Hogarth's "Marriage A-la-mode", Scene III: A Re-Inspection of the Inspection', Apollo, CXLVI/429, 1997, pp. 38-9
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1997R. Simon, 'Picture Choice: "Marriage A-la-mode" 4. The Toilette', National Gallery News, 1997
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1997D. Bindman, Hogarth and his Times (exh. cat. British Museum, 26 September 1997 - 4 January 1998), London 1997
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1997J. Egerton, Marriage A-la-Mode (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 15 October 1987 - 18 January 1988), London 1997
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1998J. Egerton, The British School, London 1998
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1998A. Ribeiro, 'Reading Dress in Hogarth's "Marriage A-la-mode"', Apollo, 1998, pp. 49-50
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1998M. Dillmann (ed.), Marriage à-la-mode: Hogarth und seine deutschen Bewunderer (exh. cat. Altes Museum and Nationalgalerie, 18 December 1998 - 28 February 1999; Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, 25 March - 20 June 1999), Berlin 1998
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1998C. Keisch, P.-K. Schuster and M. Wullen, Fontane und die bildende Kunst (exh. cat. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 4 September - 29 November 1998), Berlin 1998
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1999C. Keisch, '"Nicht jeder darf in Worte fassen, was Hogarth zu malen wagen durfte": Marriage A-la-mode: Hogarth und seine deutschen Bewunderer', Museums Journal, XIII/1, 1999, pp. 58-61
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2000Egerton, Judy, National Gallery Catalogues: The British Paintings, revised edn, London 2000
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2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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2001B. Fort and A. Rosenthal (eds), The Other Hogarth: Aesthetics of Difference, Princeton 2001
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2001W. Busch, 'Hogarth's Marriage-a-la-Mode: The Dialectic between Precision and Ambiguity', in D. Bindman (ed.), Hogarth: Representing Nature's Machines, Manchester 2001, pp. 195-218
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2001R.-M. Hagen and R. Hagen, 'Bühne frei für Lady und Liebhaber: Szenen einer Ehe', Art (Hamburg), 10, 2001, pp. 78-83
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2003J. Egerton, 'Hogarth's "Marriage A-la-mode" and the Copyist Adam Callander', The Burlington Magazine, CXLV/1199, 2003, pp. 88-91
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2006R. Simon, 'Un Rosbif À Paris: Hogarth's Visit to Paris in 1743', British Art Journal, VII/2, 2006, pp. 24-33
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2006M. Hallett (ed.), Hogarth (exh. cat. Musée du Louvre, 18 October 2006 - 7 January 2007; Tate Britain, 7 February - 29 April 2007; La Caixa, 29 May - 26 August 2007), Paris 2006
Frame
This carved and oil-gilt frame was made in England in the eighteenth century. Known as a ‘Carlo Maratta’ frame, it is named after the Italian artist Carlo Maratta. The back edge is decorated with a leaf-and-tongue design and the elegant outward-curving top is adorned with a pearl motif. The deep central hollow is embellished with acanthus leaves and shields, as well as a ribbon-and-stick motif near the sight edge.
The first owner of the painting, John Lane, recorded that William Hogarth’s Marriage A-la-Mode series was originally framed in Carlo Maratta frames that cost Hogarth four guineas each. The paintings have remained in their original frames, although these were altered in the nineteenth century to allow the fitting of glazing doors and were restored and regilded in the twentieth century.
Engravings of the Hogarth series were published in 1745. These were probably framed in what became known as ‘Hogarth frames’, used for his works on paper. They were typically made from pearwood, which takes stain well to create an ebonised finish. The finely grouped mouldings of these frames often include a gilt slip and leaf motif at the sight edge.
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
Images
About the series: Marriage A-la-Mode

Overview
For centuries, the English have been fascinated by the sexual exploits and squalid greed of the aristocracy, and these are the subjects of the six-part series Marriage A-la-Mode, which illustrates the disastrous consequences of marrying for money rather than love. The basic story is of a marriage arranged by two self-seeking fathers – a spendthrift nobleman who needs cash and a wealthy City of London merchant who wants to buy into the aristocracy. It was Hogarth’s first moralising series satirising the upper classes.
The six pictures were painted in about 1743 to be engraved and then offered for sale after the engravings were finished. The engravings are uncoloured, reversed versions of the paintings. Published in 1745, the engravings were offered to subscribers at a guinea a set. They proved instantly popular and gave Hogarth’s work a wide audience. The paintings were offered for sale by twelve noon on 6 June 1751, but only attracted two bidders, one of whom bought them all for £126.