A Midnight Modern Conversation

William Hogarth (1697 - 1764)

RA Collection: Art

William Hogarth's painting A Modern Midnight Conversation (Einberg 57) is only known from this 1733 engraving, although many painted copies attest to its popularity. One, at Yale, was believed by Ronald Paulson to be the probable original.



The print shows a scene in a private room in a tavern, depicting eleven figures in varying states of drunkenness. The scene is comparable to plate 3 of Hogarth's A Rake's Progress (17/3421), made around the same time, although the male company populating A Midnight Modern Conversation contrasts with the prostitutes accompanying Tom Rakewell in A Rake's Progress. As Paulson notes, many impressions of the print were printed in red ink, as here.