William Hogarth. Time Smoking a Picture (1761). Guildhall Art Gallery, London. The allegorical figure of Time is faking the age of a painting. It is a satirical comment on Hogarth’s belief that connoisseurs valued art only for its age.
William Hogarth. Time Smoking a Picture (1761). Guildhall Art Gallery, London. The allegorical figure of Time is faking the age of a painting. It is a satirical comment on Hogarth’s belief that connoisseurs valued art only for its age.
Plate 1 of a folio edition of Hogarth’s treatise The Analysis of Beauty printed (1796-1806), It is set in a sculptor’s yard in London with copies of well-known classical sculptures including the Farnese Hercules, the Antinous, the Laocoon and the Medici Venus. The scene is framed by compartments with diagrams relating to the text and illustrating changes in fashion, from corsets to hair styles.
