The Laughing Audience.

William Hogarth

The Laughing Audience.

London, Baldwin, Craddock & Joy 1822

Copper engraving

232x172mm

£220

From a  particularly well printed set which includes Hogarth’s erotic pair of Before and After, not usually included.

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.