William Hogarth
Time Smoking a Picture
1761
Physical Qualities
Etching and mezzotint, Sheet: 241 × 196 mm. (9 1/2 × 7 11/16 in.)
Plate: 230 × 183 mm. (9 1/16 × 7 3/16 in.)
Credit Line
Print and Drawing Acquisition Fund
Object Number
2009.120
In "Time Smoking a Picture," William Hogarth criticizes art connoisseurs who believe that visual signs of age, particularly the darkening of the varnish, are desirable in Old Master paintings as they indicate importance and value. Instead, Hogarth suggests that the effects of time are, in fact, ruining paintings. This print, intended for a learned audience, features the figure of Father Time, whose scythe has carelessly fallen through the left side of a canvas propped on an easel. The print's title is a reference to the illicit process that was sometimes used to artificially age oil paintings.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase 2009; Pia Gallo, NY
BMA, Jacobs rotation, 28 September 2010 - 8 February 2011.
