Tag: British aristocracy
-
A Night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury: syphilis among the British aristocracy in William Hogarth’s marriage à-la-mode
Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, USA William Hogarth’s famous series Marriage à-la-mode parodies English society, particularly their arranged marriages and often dissolute lifestyle. He peppered his satire of upper-class matrimony with a moralizing tone and made clear visual references to syphilis and its treatment in the mid-eighteenth century. Regarded as one of the greatest British artists of his…