Gin lane [graphic] / design'd by W. Hogarth.

Edition:

[State 3].

Published/Created:

[London]
[Wm. Hogarth]
publish'd according to act of Parliamt., Feb. 1, 1751

Physical Description:

1 print : etching and engraving on laid paper ; plate mark 38.9 x 32.1 cm, on sheet 61.1 x 47.1 cm

Related Links:

Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires, v. 3, no. 3136
Paulson, R. Hogarth's graphic works (3rd ed.), no. 186

Notes:

Title engraved above image.
State and publisher from Paulson.
Verse below image: Gin cursed fiend with fury fraught, makes human race a prey; it enters by a deadly draught, and steals our life away ...
Companion print: Beer Street.
Purchased from John Grant, Ltd., Edinburgh; August 1940; £20 Kinnaird lot. With Kinnaird bookplate; disbound at Yale.
Formerly owned by Charles Kinnaird, 8th Lord Kinnaird of Inchture (1780-1826).
Sheet trimmed to plate mark: 385 x 320 mm.

Abstract:

In the streets of the slum Ruins of St. Giles, Westminster, the only business are S. Gripe pawnbroker (left), Kilman Distiller (right) and the undertaker (background right). It is a scene of urban desolation with gin-crazed Londoners -- charity children, mothers and babies, trades people, cripples, etc. -- shown dead or dying, fighting, or stupefied with drink. Notably in the foreground a syphilitic mother sitting on the steps lets her child fall to its death over the railing, towards a flagon labeled "Gin Royal", as she takes a pinch of snuff; below her in the steps, an emaciated, bare-chested ballad-seller sleeps with a glass in one hand and a basket and a jug in the other; the ballad hanging from the basket is entitled 'The downfall of Mdm Gin". His dog looks down at the empty glass. On the right in a crumbling building a barber is shown hanging by his neck; below a crowd is being pushed back towards Kilman Distiller. Mid-ground a woman is being placed in a coffin, her child weeping on the ground beside the coffin. Another child is impaled on a spit and carried along by a cook with a bellows on his head. In the background is the tower of St George's Bloomsbury; in this state, the child's face has been changed so that the face is wizened and the eyes sunken.

Associated Names:

Hogarth, William, 1697-1764 [Printmaker]
Hogarth, William, 1697-1764 [Artist]

Topics:

Building deterioration
Children
Crowds
Death
Dogs
Fighting
Gin
Intoxication
Kinnaird, Charles Kinnaird, Baron, 1780-1826
Occupations
Pawnshops
People with disabilities
Signs (Notices)
Slums
Sotheby, Frederick
Starvation
Street vendors
Suicides
Undertakers

Language:

English

Genre:

Engravings -- England -- London -- 1751
Etchings -- England -- London -- 1751
Satires (Visual works) -- England -- 1751

Format:

Image

Content Type:

Prints & Photographs

Rights:

These images are provided for study purposes only. For publication or other use of images from the Library's collection, please contact the Lewis Walpole Library at walpole@yale.edu. Further details on the Library's photoduplication policy are available at http://www.library.yale.edu/walpole/html/research/rights_reproductions.html

Call Number:

Kinnaird 52K(a) Box 315

Orbis Record:

9884834

Yale Collection:

Lewis Walpole Library

Digital Collection:

Lewis Walpole Library

Local Record Number:

lwlpr22326

OID:

16030651

PID:

digcoll:2807160