Tag Archives: Marriage à-la-mode

A Night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury: syphilis among the British aristocracy in William Hogarth’s marriage à-la-mode

January 24, 2017

Sally Metzler Chicago, Illinois, USA   Fig. 1: William Hogarth The Inspection, from Marriage A-la-Mode ca. 1743, National Gallery, London. 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 […]