William Hogarth Cruelty Series: The Second Stage of Cruelty

Description

William Hogarth, The Four Stages of Cruelty: Second Stage of Cruelty 1 February 1751. Etching and engraving.
Dimensions:
18.5” x … more William Hogarth, The Four Stages of Cruelty: Second Stage of Cruelty 1 February 1751. Etching and engraving.
Dimensions:
18.5” x 22” x 1”

Artwork Dimensions:
12.625” x 16”

This scene suggests that the abuse of animals is widespread in the streets of London. On the left Nero (now grown-up) beats his horse, the poor creature having collapsed under the strain of the cart. This is overladen with four lawyers, who are too penny-pinching to hire two carts and insensitive to the suffering they are causing.

On the left a poster displayed near the door of ‘Thavies Inn Coffee House’ advertises ‘Broughton’s Amphitheatre’, a well-known venue for boxing. ‘James Field’ and ‘George Taylor’, named below, were celebrated pugilists.

Importantly, Field was hanged for highway robbery eleven days before Hogarth’s print was published, thus establishing an interrelationship between violent sports, entertainments and criminality. less