Marriage à la Mode

Series of six paintings by the English artist William Hogarth, completed in 1745 (Tate Gallery, London). They became widely known through engravings. Depicting the moral and financial decline of a young couple, they are satires on 18th-century life.

They show: (1) the signing of a marriage contract between the daughter of a wealthy commoner and the son of a peer; (2) the boredom of the ill-matched pair soon after the marriage; (3) and (4) the follies of the wife, the countess; (5) the discovery of the countess with her lover by the husband, the earl, and his death in the sword fight following; (6) the remorse and death of the countess.