''Heads of Six of Hogarth's Servants'' is an oil-on-canvas painting by

William Hogarth William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraving, engraver, pictorial social satire, satirist, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from Realism (visual arts), realistic p ...

from c. 1750-5.''The Tate Gallery: An Illustrated Companion to the National Collections of British & Modern Foreign Art''. London: Tate Gallery, 1979, p. 14. Measuring high and wide, it depicts the heads of six of his

domestic servants A domestic worker is a person who works within a residence and performs a variety of household services for an individual, from providing cleaning and household maintenance, or cooking, laundry and ironing, or care for children and elderly de ...

. It is held by in

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in En ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. This is evidently a late work by Hogarth, demonstrating his mastery of portraiture. The subject matter and composition are unusual, with six studies of heads crammed in a small space, distributed in three groups of two, all lit by a light source at the upper left. Space for a seventh head has been marked out roughly in the lower left corner but it was not completed like the other six. The left edge of the canvas was later cut to frame the six completed heads better, cutting off part of the absent seventh head. The painting shows three men and three women, of varying ages from youth to maturity, reminiscent of the seven ages of man, and with varying skin tones. Hogarth is exploring the differences of human physiognomy as he had in his print '' Characters and Caricaturas'' of 1743. Each subject looks in a different direction, with no lines of vision intersecting, reflecting the sketch-like nature of the work. The three female figures have similarly youthful appearances, not children but also not old. The male figures progress in age from a boy at the top centre, through a mature man at the bottom centre, to a more elderly man at the top right. The older man is possibly Ben Ives; the other servants may be "Samuel"; Mary Lewis, Hogarth's wife's cousin, who later inherited the painting; and Mrs Chappel, who was known to have worked for the Hogarths in

Chiswick Chiswick ( ) is a district in West London, split between the London Borough of Hounslow, London Boroughs of Hounslow and London Borough of Ealing, Ealing. It contains Hogarth's House, the former residence of the 18th-century English artist Wi ...

Ronald Paulson Ronald Howard Paulson (May 27, 1930 – August 7, 2024) was an American writer and professor of English who was a specialist in English 18th-century art and culture, and the world's leading expert on English artist William Hogarth. Education ...

believes the servants featured could be a coachman, valet, page, housekeeper and two housemaids. The servants are shown in their natural appearance, in their usual work clothes, capturing their individual characters. It was painted with warmth and sensitivity, demonstrating Hogarth's affection for his servants, and a lightness of touch reminiscent of his uncompleted portrait of '' The Shrimp Girl''. The work was not commissioned, but rather painted for Hogarth's own amusement. It may have been hung in Hogarth's studio to demonstrate his ability as a portraitist to his patrons. It was inherited by Hogarth's wife after his death, and left to Mary Lewis in 1789. It was sold at Greenwood's in April 1790; displayed at the

British Institution The British Institution (in full, the British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom; founded 1805, disbanded 1867) was a private 19th-century society in London formed to exhibit the works of living and dead artists; it ...

in 1817 and

Suffolk Street Gallery The Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) is a British art body established in 1823 as the Society of British Artists, as an alternative to the Royal Academy. History The RBA commenced with twenty-seven members, and took until 1876 to reach fi ...

in 1833. It was sold at

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...

in 1879 and again in 1892, when it was bought by the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current di ...

with money from the Lewis Fund. It was transferred to the Tate Gallery in 1960.

References and sources

;References ;Sources
Heads of Six of Hogarth's Servants
Tate Gallery *
Full catalogue

''Hogarth: Art and politics, 1750-1764''
Ronald Paulson, James Clarke & Co., 1993, , p. 299 {{William Hogarth Paintings by William Hogarth Paintings in the Tate galleries 1750s paintings

See also

References and sources