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Moll has gone from kept woman to common prostitute
About the Item
Attributed to John Collet (1725-1780)
Moll has gone from kept woman to common prostitute (from A Harlot's Progress)
Oil on canvas
12 x 14 3/4 in
Moll has gone from kept woman to common prostitute. Her maid is now old and syphilitic, and Henry Fielding, in Tom Jones (2:3), would say that the maid looks like his character of Mrs. Partridge. Her bed is her only major piece of furniture, and the cat poses to suggest Moll's new posture. The witch hat and birch rods on the wall suggest either black magic, or more importantly that prostitution is the devil's work. Her heroes are on the wall: Macheath from The Beggar's Opera and Henry Sacheverell, and two cures for syphilis are above them.
The wig box of highwayman James Dalton (hanged on 11 May 1730) is stored over her bed, suggesting a romantic dalliance. The magistrate, Sir John Gonson, with three armed bailiffs, is coming through the door on the right side of the frame to arrest Moll for her activities. Moll is showing off a new watch (perhaps a present from Dalton, perhaps stolen from another lover) and exposing her left breast. Gonson, however, is fixed upon the witch's hat and 'broom' or the periwig hanging from the wall above Moll's bed.
The composition satirically resembles that of an Annunciation, i.e. the announcement by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus, the Son of God, as recorded in the Gospel of Luke 1:26–39.
John Collet was born in London about 1725, and son of a gentleman holding a public office. He was a pupil of painter George Lambert, and studied at the art school in St Martin's Lane.
He first exhibited at the exhibition of the Free Society of Artists in 1761, to which he sent three landscapes. In 1762, he exhibited with the same society A Gipsy telling some Country Girls their Fortune.
From this time, though he occasionally exhibited landscapes, portraits, animals, and other subjects, his pictures are mainly of a humorous description, based on the style of William Hogarth, whose 'comedy in art' he strove to imitate, if not to surpass. There was a large demand for his pictures, and the engravings from them, many by first-class engravers, were published by Carington Bowles, Smith & Sayer, Boydell, and other well-known publishers.
Collett continued to exhibit with the Free Society of Artists up to 1783. His pictures give insight into manners at the end of the 18th century. In 1775, Richard Brinsley Sheridan brought out his comedy The Duenna and Collett drew pictures based on scenes in this play. One of them, representing the drinking scene in the convent (act iii. scene 5), was figured in Thomas Wright's History of Caricature and Grotesque in Art.
He inherited a fortune from a relation, and resided in Chelsea, London, where he died, in Cheyne Row, on 6 August 1780, and was buried there on 11 August
- Attributed to:John Collet (1725 - 1780, British)
- Dimensions:Height: 12 in (30.48 cm)Width: 14.75 in (37.47 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Stoke, GB
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU446311789752
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LAPADA - The Association of Arts & Antiques DealersInternational Confederation of Art and Antique Dealers' AssociationsThe British Antique Dealers' Association
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