A Rake's Progress

A Rake's Progress (or The Rake's Progress) is a series of eight paintings by 18th-century English artist William Hogarth. The canvases were produced in 1732–1734, then engraved in 1734 and published in print form in 1735. The series shows the decline and fall of Tom Rakewell, the spendthrift son and heir of a rich merchant, who comes to London, wastes all his money on luxurious living, prostitution and gambling, and as a consequence is imprisoned in the Fleet Prison and ultimately Bethlem Hospital (Bedlam). The original paintings are in the collection of Sir John Soane's Museum in London, where they are normally on display for a short period each day.

The filmmaker Alan Parker has described the works as an ancestor to the storyboard.

In the first painting, Tom has come into his fortune on the death of his miserly father. While the servants mourn, he is measured for new clothes. Although he has had a common-law marriage with her, he now rejects the hand of his pregnant fiancée, Sarah Young, whom he had promised to marry. She holds his ring and her mother holds his love letters. He pays her off, but she still loves him, as becomes clear in the fourth painting. Behind Tom, the administrator of the estate filches a coin from the money bag Tom holds.

Evidence of the father's miserliness abound: his portrait above the fireplace shows him counting money; symbols of hospitality (a roasting jack and spit) have been locked up at upper right; the coat of arms shows three clamped vises with the motto "Beware"; a half-starved cat reveals the father kept little food in the house, while a lack of ashes in the fireplace demonstrates that he spent even less money on wood to heat his home.

A servant hanging mourning crepe accidentally uncovers a cache of gold coins. The engraving (right), which is reversed left-to-right compared to the painting, shows the father went so far as to resole his shoes with a piece of leather cut from a Bible cover. An account book has an entry of the miser's joy of getting rid of a bad shilling.

In the second painting, Tom is at his morning levée in his new London home, attended by musicians and other hangers-on, all dressed in expensive costumes. Surrounding Tom from left to right: a music master at a harpsichord, who was supposed to represent George Frideric Handel or Nicola Porpora; a fencing master; a quarterstaff instructor; a dancing master with a violin; a landscape gardener, Charles Bridgeman; an ex-soldier offering to be a bodyguard; and a bugler of a fox hunt club.

At lower right is a jockey with a silver trophy showing Tom's racehorse "Silly Tom". In the background left are more hangers-on, including a poet, a wig maker and a hat maker. The quarterstaff instructor looks disapprovingly on both the fencing and dancing masters. Both masters appear to be in the "French" style, which was a subject Hogarth loathed. Upon the wall, between paintings of roosters (emblems of cockfighting), there is a painting of the Judgement of Paris.

The third painting depicts a wild party or orgy underway at a brothel. The prostitutes are stealing the drunken Tom's watch. On the floor at bottom right is a night watchman's staff and lantern — souvenirs of Tom's 'wild night' on the town. The scene takes place at the Rose Tavern, a famous brothel in Covent Garden. The prostitutes have black spots on their faces to cover syphilitic sores.