Condition:  Print in excellent condition, mount and frame new.

This superb print is from the original copper plate engraved in c1726 by Hogarth.  It is an issue made in the mid nineteenth century by Bernard Quaritch.

The original Hogarth Hudibras prints are rarer than most Hogarth works.  This is because he engraved them early in his career and sold them to the publisher Philip Overton.  They were re-issued by the printseller Robert Sayer in 1768, a few year after Hogarth's death, but were not in the possession of his widow Jane or the publisher John Boydell, who issued most of the Hogarth prints in the 18th century, nor of Baldwin Cradock and Joy, who in the early 19th century used the copies made by Thomas Cook, which are far more common. Quaritch acquired the plates in the mid nineteenth century and published them as part of their reissue of the Baldwin Cradock and Joy editions, the last time these plates were published.

Hogarth engraved a set of twelve plates to illustrate Samuel Butler's satirical poem. They were not illustrations to be published with the book (Hogarth had engraved smaller illustrations some years before for a book copy of Hudibras), but stand-alone.   

Tagged "The modern Quixote" when it was published in 1662, the poem was very popular.  Hudibras is an anti hero rather less sympathetic than Quixote.  This plate is the frontispiece to the set of twelve prints. A youth is finishing the sculpture on a large monument which bears Butler's portrait. The sculptor reads a line of the poem from a book held by a satyr. The sculpture shows Hudibras and his servant Ralpho, together with figures of Rebellion, Hypocrisy and Ignorance, tied to a chariot and being lashed with a whip by Butler's Genius, sitting in the chariot.  For more details and explanation, see Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works, 1989.

A really nice example of a rare print.  Hogarth's works were copied numerous times, and by and large the quality of the copies are far inferior and usually not the same size.

I have other prints from the series for sale, and three of four would make a very nice set - see my other items, or enquire.

The frame is optional - please see the order options. It is a new 16 x 10inch frame chosen to suit the print and it is glazed with acrylic (perspex) which will not break and if looked after is superior to glass as a protector of the artwork.  If ordered framed, the picture will be ready to hang immediately.