Hudibras Visiting Sidrophel (Seventeen Small Illustrations for Samuel Butler's Hudibras, no. 11)
Medium
Etching and engraving
Dimensions
sheet: 4 1/4 x 2 11/16 in. (10.8 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(99)
Tags
Art Historical Context
William Hogarth's *Hudibras Visiting Sidhel* (no. 11 from a series of seventeen small illustrations for Samuel Butler's satirical poem *Hudibras captures a whimsical moment from 1660s verse that lampooned Puritan zealots during England's Restoration era. Created between 1721 and 1726, this etching and engraving depicts the bumbling knight Hudibras consulting the astrologer Sidrophel globes and arcane instruments, poking fun at superstition and pseudoscience in a post-Civil War world still rife with religious and political satire. Hogarth, a master of biting social commentary in the early Roco...
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...