Chairing the Members - William Hogarth
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Description
A satirical engraving by William Hogarth depicting the chaotic aftermath of an 18th-century British parliamentary election.
Chairing the Members is the fourth and final plate in William Hogarth's Election series, a sequence of prints that satirises the corruption and chaos of 18th-century British parliamentary elections. Published in 1758, the work depicts the aftermath of a poll, where the winning candidate is hoisted aloft in a chair by his supporters. The scene is one of absolute disorder, reflecting the artist's cynical view of the political process.
Hogarth fills the composition with specific, often grotesque, details. In the centre, the newly elected member appears terrified as his bearers stumble, threatening to drop him into the mud. To the left, a group of onlookers watches from a wall, including a man perched near a skull, while a fiddler plays in the foreground. The environment is cluttered with symbols of societal decay: a pig runs through the crowd, a man falls into a stream, and the architecture shows signs of neglect. The artist employs a dense, narrative style, using cross-hatching to create depth and texture across the urban scene. Every figure contributes to a broader commentary on the absurdity of the electoral system, where bribery and physical violence often dictated the outcome.
As a master of the satirical print, Hogarth uses this work to document the social realities of his time. The print serves as a critique of the moral failings of the political class and the unruly nature of the electorate. By focusing on the physical comedy and the disarray of the procession, he captures the tension between the gravity of the political event and the farcical reality of its execution. This print remains a significant example of Hogarth's ability to combine social observation with technical precision in engraving.
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Museum-grade giclée on FSC-certified archival matte paper, with framed and canvas options.
- Paper sizes: A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 and B2 (50×70 cm)
- Canvas: XS (20×30 cm) to Large (60×90 cm)
- Frames: black, natural wood, dark wood or white
Chairing the Members - William Hogarth
Artist Biography
William Hogarth
He was born in Smithfield, London, near the meat market. His father, a schoolteacher, was imprisoned for debt when William was a child. The experience of debtors' prison appears throughout his work. He apprenticed to a silver engraver and taught himself painting by copying old masters and observing London street life with the attention of a novelist.
He was shrewd about money and copyright. The Engraving Copyright Act of 1735 ('Hogarth's Act') was passed largely through his lobbying. It gave printmakers legal ownership of their designs for the first time, preventing pirated copies. He was protecting his income: the popular prints were his main revenue source.
He painted portraits, historical scenes, and the extraordinary Shrimp Girl, an unfinished head study of a street vendor that anticipates Impressionism by a century. The brushwork is loose, fresh, and immediate. It does not look like anything else painted in the 1740s. He also wrote The Analysis of Beauty (1753), a treatise on aesthetics that argued beauty derived from serpentine lines, which was mocked but was not wrong.
He died in 1764, at sixty-six. He is buried in Chiswick, west London. His tomb has a modest inscription. His influence on British satirical art, from Gillray to Banksy, has no inscription and no end.
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