William Hogarth – Simon Lord Lovat

William Hogarth – Simon Lord Lovat

A full length, seated portrait of the incredibly ugly, elderly, reprobate Jacobite rebel Simon Fraser 12th Baron Lovat (1667-1747).

At the invitation of a Dr. Webster, Hogarth had travelled to The White Hart Inn, St. Albans to draw the famous rebel who had halted there briefly while on his way to trial in London, after the failure of the ’45 Rebellion.

Lovat was found guilty and executed on Tower Hill on April 9th 1747, the last person to be beheaded in England.

Hogarth shows him here seated in a large, carved armchair, counting off on his fingers the Highland chieftains whom he thought would fight against the Hanoverian dynasty occupying the British throne.

Paulson 166 II/III

William Hogarth

William Hogarth, (born November 10, 1697, London, England—died October 26, 1764, London), the first great English-born artist to attract admiration abroad, best known for his MORAL and satirical engravings and paintings—e.g., A Rake’s Progress (eight scenes,1733). His attempts to build a reputation as a history painter and portraitist, however, met with financial disappointment, and his aesthetic theories had more influence in Romantic literature than in painting.

See full William Hogarth catalogue here