Hudibras in Tribulation (Seventeen Small Illustrations for Samuel Butler's Hudibras, no. 7)
Medium
Etching and engraving
Dimensions
sheet: 4 11/16 x 2 11/16 in. (11.9 x 6.9 cm) (trimmed)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1932
Accession Number
32.35(105)
Tags
Art Historical Context
This small etching and engraving by William Hogarth forms part of a series of seventeen illustrations created between 1721 and 1726 for Samuel Butler’s satirical poem *Hudibras*. Written in the late seventeenth century, Butler’s mock-heroic work lampoons Puritan zeal and the excesses of the English Civil War through the bumbling knight Sir Hudibras and his squire Ralpho. In this scene, titled *Hudibras in Tribulation*, the hapless protagonist finds himself in a humiliating predicament involving both men and women, underscoring the poem’s themes of folly and retribution. Hogarth’s early printm...
About the Artist
William Hogarth|Samuel Butler · 1697–1764
William Hogarth (1697-1764) was an English painter, printmaker, and pictorial satirist who became the first great English-born artist to attract admiration abroad. Born into poverty in London, the son of a failed schoolmaster who was imprisoned for debt, Hogarth's early experiences with the harsh realities of 18th-century urban life profoundly shaped his artistic vision. After apprenticing with si...