Object Detail
Description
print A Taste in High Life. On the left is a woman with her servant, a young boy she has dressed up in a feathered turban. The woman on the right is wearing a dress with a ludicrously full skirt. Her companion wears a long pigtail and is carrying a huge white fur muff. This couple are in a raptures over a teacup held by the woman, and its matching saucer, held by the man. A passion for collecting porcelain was widely seen as a foible of the wealthy. Even the pictures on the wall make fun of fashionable body shapes and the means to achieve them: vast skirts supported on hoops, corsets and high-heeled shoes. In the foreground is a dressed-up monkey reading from a dinner menu offering 'cox combs, ducks tongues, rabbits ears and fricasey of snails'.
Maker and role
artist: William Hogarth (English, b.1697, d.1764); FRSA
engraver
engraver
Production place
London, England
Production date
Post 1798
Media description
engraving on paper
Measurements
205 x 263 mm
Credit line
gift of Christine Bell (Downer), Melbourne, 2010
Project credit line
This digital record has been made available on TJC Collection Online through a significant donation from the OPENING DOORS fund, the generous support of The Friends of The Johnston Collection, and Digitisation Champion Christine Bell
Accession number
A1271
TJC reference number
1615
