The Industrious Prentice - Lord Mayor of London

The Industrious Prentice - Lord Mayor of London is an original etching print realized by William Hogarth in 1747

Signature on the plate on the lower right, with the description on the lower.

Good conditions, with some foxing.

Engraving after William Hogarth's third of the four paintings The Humours of an Election (1754-58), his last painted cycle about contemporary affairs. The paintings are now in Sir John Soane's Museum, London. Hogarth shifted his attention from the squalor of urban life to the corruption of the political world. He drew inspiration from the notorious contest between the liberal Whig party and the conservative Tory party to win Oxfordshire’s parliamentary seats in the General Election of 1754. Hogarth depicts the four 'humours' of an election, and, in this plate, he scrutinizes the electoral process itself. The Polling is the third scene of the series, and depicts the voters at the polling stand with two candidates. Each side tries to extract votes from whomever they can whilst disputing the other side’s right to do the same.