“ The  Room  of  a  Justice  of  the  Peace … from  old  Time ”

Hogarth, William (1697 London 1764). (A Woman Swearing her Child to a Grave Citizen.) The judicial affiliation. Engraving by Thomas Cook (c. 1744 – London 1818). Inscribed: W. Hogarth pinx^t. / T. Cook sculp. 31 x 36.2 cm. – With 12-lined subtext: “Here Justice triumphs in his Elbow Chair …”.

“ A known English legal procedure in the judicial determination of fatherhood of illegitimate births is the subject of this sheet … The stage is the room of a Justice of the Peace … and that of a model from old time … ”

Not published by Hogarth himself Cook’s work for his own Hogarth cycle executed between 1795 and 1803 became the original engraving (“made a name for himself as Hogarth engraver, too”, Thieme-Becker, whereby he is the only one who kept the original folio format). Here present in the impression from the plate reworked by the royal engraver James Heath (1757 London 1834) about 1822 (“Even these impressions became relatively rare today though”, Art Gallery Esslingen 1970; and Meyers Konv.-Lex., 4^th ed., VIII [1888], 625: “A fine edition”) on buff paper with margins up 13.5 cm wide.
Offer no. 7,819 / EUR  240. (c. US$ 387.) + shipping

– – – The same in Cook’s smaller version. 1809. Inscribed: Woman Swearing a Child to a Grave Citizen. / Hogarth pinx^t. / T. Cook sculp^t. Image size 14 x 17.5 cm. – Trimmed within the somewhat age-spotted wide white plate mark.
Offer no. 9,019 / EUR  95. (c. US$ 153.) + shipping

– – – The same in engraving by Ernst Ludwig Riepenhausen (1765 Göttingen 1840). Inscribed: Woman Swearing a Child / W. Hogarth p^t. / Riepenhausen fec. 18.8 x 22.8 cm. – On slightly toned minor paper.
Offer no. 7,820 / EUR  138. (c. US$ 223.) + shipping

– – – The same in steel engraving about 1850. Inscribed: Der Eid und das Kind in spe / Woman swearing a Child. 13 x 15.7 cm.
Offer no. 7,821 / EUR  50. (c. US$ 81.) + shipping

„ … Die (vom Schwiegervater geerbten Par force-Jagd) Ridinger … habe ich in meinem Arbeitszimmer bestens neben einem Gobelin plaziert und möchte sie nicht mehr verkaufen. Besten Dank und ein Kompliment an Ihr Haus, dass sie nach so vielen Jahren noch an mich gedacht haben “

(Herr K.-A. H., 2. Februar 2004)