ENGLAND, William Hogarth, 1848, a copper medal by L.C. Wyon after L.-F. Roubiliac for the Art Union of London, bust right, rev. detail from Hogarth’s painting Canvassing for Votes, 55mm, 94.89g (Attwood, Wyon Diaries, p.387, 30; Beaulah 4; BHM 2302; BDM VI, 627; E 1427; cf. SJA 76, 299; cf. DNW 164, 3601). Tiny reverse rim nick at 1 o’clock, otherwise extremely fine £100-£150

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Silich Collection of Historical and Art Medals.

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Edition of 161 in copper struck in two batches, on 23 June 1848 and 17 November 1848. William Hogarth (1697-1764), painter, engraver, satirist and cartoonist; by the time the sculptor Louis-François Roubiliac moved to London in 1730 Hogarth was commencing his series of moral works, culminating in A Rake’s Progress. The two became firm friends and Roubiliac completed several portraits of Hogarth and his family. The reverse of the medal is taken from the central detail of the second of a series of paintings by Hogarth executed in 1754-5, The Humours of an Election II: Canvassing for Votes; formerly owned by the actor David Garrick, it was acquired by Sir John Soane in 1823 and is retained in the London museum named after him. Set in an Oxfordshire village, the central figure of a yeoman farmer is seen accepting bribes from agents of opposing political parties, inferring that corruption at the time of elections was absolute and invidious