Hogarth's Servants facts for kids
Heads of Six of Hogarth's Servants is a famous painting by William Hogarth. He painted it around 1750-1755. It's an oil painting on canvas, which means it was made using oil paints on a piece of cloth. The painting shows the faces of six people who worked for Hogarth as servants. You can see this painting today at Tate Britain in London.
This artwork is one of Hogarth's later pieces. It shows how skilled he was at painting portraits, which are pictures of people. The way the painting is set up is quite unusual. It has six faces packed closely together in a small space. They are arranged in three pairs, and light shines on them from the top left side. There's even a faint outline for a seventh head in the bottom left corner, but it was never finished. Later, the painting was cut a bit on the left side to make the six finished heads look better.
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What is This Painting About?
The painting features three men and three women. They are of different ages, from young to older. Their skin tones also vary. Hogarth was interested in showing how different people look. He explored this idea in another work called Characters and Caricaturas from 1743.
Each person in the painting looks in a different direction. Their eyes don't meet, which makes the painting feel like a quick sketch. The three women look quite young, but they are not children. The men show a range of ages. There's a young boy at the top center, a grown man at the bottom center, and an older man at the top right.
Who Are the People in the Painting?
We don't know for sure who all the servants are. The older man might be Ben Ives. Other possible servants include "Samuel," Mary Lewis, and Mrs. Chappel. Mary Lewis was Hogarth's wife's cousin. She later inherited the painting. Mrs. Chappel was known to work for the Hogarth family at their home in Chiswick.
A historian named Ronald Paulson thinks the servants could be a coachman, a valet (a personal assistant), a page (a young servant), a housekeeper, and two housemaids. The painting shows the servants looking natural. They are wearing their everyday work clothes. Hogarth captured their unique personalities. He painted them with warmth and care, showing how much he liked his servants. The style is light and free, similar to his unfinished painting The Shrimp Girl.
The Story of the Painting
Hogarth didn't paint this artwork because someone asked him to. He painted it just for fun and for himself. It might have been displayed in his art studio. This way, visitors could see how good he was at painting portraits.
After Hogarth passed away, his wife inherited the painting. In 1789, she left it to Mary Lewis. The painting was sold at an auction called Greenwood's in April 1790. It was shown to the public at the British Institution in 1817. It was also displayed at the Suffolk Street Gallery in 1833.
Later, the painting was sold again at Christie's in 1879 and then in 1892. In 1892, the National Gallery bought it using money from the Lewis Fund. Finally, in 1960, it was moved to the Tate Gallery, which is now known as Tate Britain.
See also
- List of works by William Hogarth
In Spanish: Los servidores del pintor para niños
