Sujet

'Beer Street', 1751. Artist: William Hogarth

Légende

'Beer Street', 1751. Working people enjoying a tankard of beer outside the Barley Mow public house. The figures include two women with baskets of fish and a butcher holding a joint of meat, whilst above him an artist paints the inn sign. Fourth and final state of the plate. This print was published in support of a campaign directed against gin drinking among London's poor. Consumption of cheap spirits by the poor had soared in the early eighteenth century, with dire social consequences. Beer Street celebrates the virtues of the mildly intoxicating traditional national drink. Beer inspires artists and refreshes tradesmen and labourers. It can be drunk safely on rooftops. The newfangled foreign spirit gin, however, inspires violence and careless inebriation.

Date

1751

Crédit

Photo12/Heritage Images/City of London : The London Archives

Notre référence

HRM19A75_427

Model release

NA

Property release

NA

Licence

Droits gérés

Format disponible

49,9Mo (5,0Mo) / 31,8cm x 39,4cm / 3750 x 4654 (300dpi)

Mots clés

road building buildings London England food drink female women woman people male job man men fish street shopping shop shops happiness arts painting pub art guy occupation alcohol beer public house lane avenue artist meat inn location century profession drunk literature lady concept butcher drunkenness B&W tavern MONOCHROME metaphor street seller aquatic life poem black & white black and white B W Inn Sign 18th century Eighteenth Century Guildhall Library & Art Gallery fish seller painting a picture pawn shop pawnbroker sign of the times street life street trader TGN satire engraving William Hogarth W Hogarth William Hogarth;Hogarth William;W Hogarth Hogarth William