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A ByMuseum Masterpiece Series · William Hogarth, 1743
The Six Rooms of a Bad Marriage
One marriage. Six paintings. Six rooms.Every room leaves evidence.
Enter Room 1This is not one painting. It is a six-part story. In 1743 William Hogarth painted six scenes from one marriage, arranged between an earl who needed money and a merchant who wanted a title, and followed it from the contract to the funeral. He called the series Marriage A-la-Mode, marriage in the fashionable manner, and hung the paintings in order, like rooms in a house.
Each room has its own article, its own evidence and its own crops. Walk through them in order. The clues in Room 1 are answered in Room 6.
Six doors
Open them in order. Each one is a painting, and each painting is a chapter.
1The DealThe Marriage SettlementA marriage begins as a business transaction.Open Room 1 →
2The Morning AfterThe Tête à TêteThe marriage is new, but the house already feels exhausted.Open Room 2 →
3The DoctorThe InspectionThe consequences leave the drawing room and enter another kind of room.Open Room 3 →
4The PerformanceThe ToiletteStatus has become theatre.Open Room 4 →
5The Secret RoomThe BagnioWhat was hidden can no longer stay private.Open Room 5 →
6The Final CostThe Lady's DeathThe ending returns to the deal that began the story.Open Room 6 →
1The Deal→2The Morning After→3The Doctor→4The Performance→5The Secret Room→6The Final Cost
One story, six paintings
Hogarth painted the six pictures to be engraved, and the prints, published in 1745, made the story famous across Europe. The paintings themselves sold badly: at his own auction in 1751 one bidder took all six for 120 guineas. They passed to the banker John Julius Angerstein and, with his collection, became part of the founding of the National Gallery in London in 1824, where they hang today in a single room, in order.
The characters have names that tell you what they are: the Earl of Squander, Viscount Squanderfield, Counsellor Silvertongue. Hogarth promised his subscribers that none of them was a real person. All of them were.
Start with the first agreement and follow the story room by room.
Enter Room 1Own the six rooms
Each scene is painted by hand in oil on canvas from the National Gallery original. Order one room, or the set to hang in order.
1. The Marriage SettlementHand-painted, from $259
2. The Tête à TêteHand-painted, from $259
3. The InspectionHand-painted, from $259
4. The ToiletteHand-painted, from $259
5. The BagnioHand-painted, from $259
6. The Lady's DeathHand-painted, from $259