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Times of the Day: Morning

Times of the Day: Morning

William Hogarth (1697 - 1764)

Date: 1738
Dimensions:
500 x 415 mm
Medium: Engraving
Object number: PT1098
DescriptionFours times of the Day: Plate 1 "Morning"

This scene is set on the west side of Covent Garden outside St Paul's Church on a cold winter's day as indicated by the snow on the rooftops of the surrounding buildings and the icicles that have formed on the roof the Tom King's coffee House. In the coffee house was on the other side of the square but Hogarth relocated it to fit it in his original painting. In the coffee house a fight has broken in which swords have been drawn.

Fruit and vegetable sellers and markets stallholders are preparing for the day's market.

Among the crowd a man is holding a large hoarding advertising various pills and cures. This character is possible that of Dr. Richard Rock, a real doctor, seen in Plate 5 of a "Harlot's progress" who was famous for selling medicines for venereal disease and toothache.

In the centre of the scene we see a well-dressed spinster and her young pageboy making their way to church. She puts her fan against her lips in an action of disapproval or contemplation of the sight of two young aristocratic men fondling and kissing two young market girls.
The spinster figure has been interpreted as a hypocrite, who despite attending church shows a lack of charity by her indifference to her freezing pageboy carrying her prayer books and the starving African beggar who sits before her holding out a hand for money and the poor woman warming herself by the fire.