Size:  Full sheet 46.5 x 38.5 cm.  The print is trimmed to the platemark.

Condition:  Overall in good condition, with no water staining, tears or creasing. The print has some age toning and small patches of surface wear consistent with its age. It is on stout laid paper, consistent with that known to have been used for the publication to subscribers.

This very scarce print is a first issue of this work by William Hogarth, the first plate of a series of 6 which Hogarth published after his own paintings.

The prints were originally issued to subscribers, and this is one of those issued. It is the 5th state of the print, the earlier ones all  proofs before publication. 

Hogarth, unusually, engaged French engravers to engrave the series, for this print Gerard Jean-Baptiste Scotin. It would appear that this is the original print by Scotin, and that subsequently Hogarth himself made a few minor but significant changes before the print was reissued.

Hogarth made the paintings for the prints in reverse, so that the prints show the true reading of the series.  The narrative series shows the disastrous results of an ill-considered marriage for money or social status, and satirizes patronage and aesthetics. 

See Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works, 1989, page 114 et seq. for further detail.

Prints continued to be issued from Hogarth's plates into the 19th century, but prints from earlier states of the plates are extremely rare.