Hogarth's Marriage-à-la-mode
To the death
William Hogarth, Marriage-à-la-mode, Plate 5, 1745, etching and engraving, Drawings, Paintings and Prints Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library
To the death
Squanderfield captures his wife and Silvertongue in a cheap brothel following the masquerade ball. Squanderfield is killed in the ensuing swordfight, and Silvertongue flees out of a window. The wife begs her husband for forgiveness as he takes his final breaths.
The devil is in the detail
A tapestry depicting the Judgement of Solomon hangs on the wall. It alludes to the wife's choice of her lover over her husband. It also returns to the decisions made by the Earl and the Merchant in the first plate of this series. Their judgement led to the marriage contract that started this disastrous chain of events.
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