The Laughing Audience.

William Hogarth

The Laughing Audience.

London, J & J Boydell ca 1806

Copper engraving

232x172mm

£240

From the collection of George Morant, (1770 – 1846) of 95 Wimpole St, London. A very fine set on mostly uncut sheets kept loose in a folio. Carefully printed and in very good condition.

Morant was a collector and Founder of a business of paper hangers, carvers, gilders and picture frame makers.

The company had offices at 88 Old Bond St,  from 1814, and was appointed as ‘house decorator, carver, gilder & picture-frame-maker to His Majesty’. From 1832 he was appointed again by Her majesty Queen Victoria

The auditorium of a theatre, with the audience laughing at the unseen play. At the bottom is the orchestra with the musicians solemnly blowing on bassoon-like instruments, and above them is the pit, separated from the orchestra by a row of spikes. A sourly restrained gentleman is evidently a critic, and in the row of boxes at the top are two foppish rakes, one making advances to a woman and the other to two orange girls. Paulson 130.