The Reward of Cruelty
1750
Medium
Woodcut in black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image/block: 45.5 × 38.5 cm (17 15/16 × 15 3/16 in.); Sheet: 52 × 42.4 cm (20 1/2 × 16 3/4 in.)
Classification
woodcut
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
227322
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
In the conclusion to the print series Four Stages of Cruelty, the corpse of the murderer Tom Nero is dissected in an anatomy theater. At this time the bodies of criminals were the main source of cadavers; here Hogarth pointedly left the hangman’s noose around Nero’s neck. The dog gnawing on an discarded organ, possibly the heart, refers to the character’s unseemly torture of a dog in the first print of the series.Hogarth commissioned this work and Cruelty in Perfection in a rare foray into the w...
About the Artist
William Hogarth · 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...