18th century copperplate engraving, Wm. Hogarth's The Bench (2nd state 1764) & The Five Orders of Perriwigs (1761), two engravings printed on one full folio sheet (trimmed). The Bench and Five Orders of Perriwigs were designed and engraved by William Hogarth and published together by Baldwin, Cradock and Joy in 1822, from the original plates as restored by James Heath, engraver to His Majesty. The Heath edition was the last to print directly from Hogarth's original engraved plates. All William Hogarth prints appearing after this date are copies of these original graphic works of art.
In William Hogarth's "The Five Orders of Perriwigs as they were Worn at the Late Coronation Measured Architectomically" he satirizes both fashion and scholarship. It caricatures the popular eighteenth century notion that one could construct laws of composition and models of beauty from the measuring ancient statues and columns and applies this shaky model to the ridiculous hair styles of the times. William Hogarth divides the periwigs into five categories that parody the five orders of Palladian architectural rules, the Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Composite and Tuscan. The equivalents William Hogarth fashions are Episcopal (the clergy), Old Peerian or Aldermanic (city officials and peers), Lexonic (lawyers), Composite or Half Natural and 'Queerinthian'. The final category is derived from 'Corinthian' and represents the most ornate and effete. This original engraving was both designed and engraved by the British satirical artist, William Hogarth. – artoftheprint.com
Refining on his work in "Character Caricaturas," Hogarth's "The Bench" attempts to define more closely and illustrate further the terms "character," "caracatura," and "outrè." He illustrates the term "character" by representing four pompous judges listening to a case in the Court of Common Pleas. Callously inattentive to the case before them, these undignified, pompous men, buried in their robes and wigs, slumber or read. That they are characters is suggested by the fact that their faces and posture are comic and revealing without being sharply exaggerated, and by the fact that the men have been identified as historical figures. The man with the quill is Chief Justice Sir John Willes; the one to the right with the long nose, Henry Bathurst; the third is William Noel; in the background is Sir Edward Clive.
The line of heads above the judges is a unfinished addition to the print; Hogarth worked on it the day before his death but did not complete it. The faces here seem intended as examples of "caracaturas" and "outrè"; the heads are of the lame man in Raphael's Sacrifice at Lystra, the Apostles from Leonardo's Last Supper and the long-nosed judge portrayed below. Early states depict the royal arms instead of the row of heads. - Excerpt from Engravings by Hogarth, edited by Sean Shesgreen (Dover, 1973)
Data: paper size ~ 13 x 24 inches, The Bench plate size ~7.5 x 8 inches, The Five Orders of Perriwigs plate size ~8.25 x 12 inches, copperplate engravings
Condition: print trimmed, with repaired tears top and bottom - the bottom tear extending into the image, - top top tears the result of earlier hinging (see photos), paper shows very little foxing or staining, good impression with lightening at extreme bottom corners of The Five Orders of Perriwigs
Origin: design and engraving by William Hogarth, printed for Baldwin, Cradock & Joy, Paternoster Row
by Nichols and Son, Parliament Street, London, 1822, purchased at some point from Dickens' Old Curiosity Shop, London
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