concept:era early modern
A Rake's Progress
Series of 8 paintings (1732-1734) and engravings (1735) by William Hogarth. Paintings: Sir John Soane's Museum, London. Follows Tom Rakewell's moral descent from inherited wealth through dissipation, debtors' prison, and Bedlam asylum.
Scholarly Significance
A Rake's Progress anchors English 18th-century satirical printmaking and the sequential narrative print series as a vehicle for moral commentary.