Paul Before Felix Burlesqued

William Hogarth (1697 - 1764)

RA Collection: Art

This etching by William Hogarth, a burlesque on his painting Paul Before Felix (1748-51, Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn) was used as the subscription ticket for subscribers to his large prints of Paul Before Felix and . The print, 'Design'd and Etch'd in the ridiculous manner of Rembrandt', was Hogarth's response to Rembrandt's etchings, which were in vogue in England at the time. As Paulson writes, 'the print satirizes Rembrandt's realism , his grossly physical and particularized people, his use of contemporary Dutchmen for models, his vulgarity and his chiaroscuro effects'. In the directness of its attack on a specific artist the burlesque can be compared with Hogarth's earlier Characters and Caricaturas (17/3433) with its attacks on the Ghezzi, Annibale Caracci and Leonardo da Vinci. The burlesque became so popular that Hogarth decided to sell it as a separate print (after removing the receipt below the image) and adapting another print, Boys Peeping at Nature for later subscribers to the two prints.

This is a counterproof, made by running a freshly-printed impression through the press against a blank sheet of paper to produce a reversed version of the print. Paulson notes that Hogarth took several counterproofs of Paul Before Felix Burlesqued in this state, listing other impressions in the Royal Library at Windsor, Burghley House, the Fitzwilliam Museum and the collection of Wilmart S. Lewis (the collection formerly belonging to George Steevens).