Moses Brought to Pharaoh's Daughter, 1752

William Hogarth (1697 - 1764)

RA Collection: Art

Engraving reproducing (in reverse) the painting by William Hogarth which the artist presented to the Foundling Hospital (now the Foundling Museum) upon its completion in 1746. The painting was Hogarth's only Old Testament subject, and shows the moment when the infant Moses, who was found by the banks of the Nile by pharaoh's daughter, is given up to her to be brought up at court. The subject was appropriate for the Foundling Hospital, which raised abandoned children, and provided a depiction of the ideal to which it aspired.

This print was first published in 1752 alongside a print of another religious painting by Hogarth, Paul Before Felix. The subscription ticket for the two prints was a 'burlesque' of the latter (see 17/3548). This impression is from the first published state before changes were made in subsequent states published in 1759 (17/3895) and 1762 (17/3559).