Taste in High Life, William Hogarth, 1746

Copy of an expensively furnished interior with an elderly lady wearing an enormous hooped petticoat in conversation with an extravagantly dressed gentleman; to left, a fashionable young lady pats a black page boy under the chin; in the foreground, a monkey wearing a coat and three-cornered hat reads a menu beginning "pour dinner/cox combs. . "; on the far wall, are pictures including one, labelled "insects", showing the dancer george desnoyer, and another showing a statue of venus with a hooped petticoat and stays; second state. 1746 etching. Date: 1746. Dimensions: Height: 207 mm (cropped); Width: 269 mm (cropped). Medium: paper. Depicted People: Mary Edwards. Collection: British Museum. Taste in High Life (BM S,2.65)