An old woman, the prude, is standing near a crowd of people huddled around a bonfire in Covent Garden. She is crossing Covent Garden Piazza, disapproving of the amorous scenes outside the notorious Tom King’s Coffee House. The print shows the morning and is part of a series representing the progress of the day.
- Printmaker: Cook, Thomas, approximately 1744-1818, printmaker.
- Title: Morning [graphic] / designed by Wm. Hogarth ; engraved by T. Cook.
- Publication: [London] : Published August the 1st, 1797, by G.G. & J. Robinson, Pater-noster Row, London, [1 August 1797]
Hogarth 797.08.01.01++ Box 310
Acquired January 2021
A copy in reverse of William Hogarth’s Plate 5 of A harlot’s progress: In a squalid room Moll Hackabout, wrapped in a sheet, is dying while two doctors (Richard Rock and Jean Misaubin) argue over their remedies. Her serving-woman reaches out to them in alarm to get their attention for the invalid, while another woman rifles through Moll’s portmanteau (with her initials as in Plate 1). A small boy knelling next to Moll’s chair scratches his head as he turns a joint of meat roasting in front of the fire while a pot overflows on the grate. An over-turned table with an advertisement “Practical scheme … ‘Anodyne” litters the floor in the foreground.