William Hogarth (1697-1764)
Industry and Idleness I: The Fellow ’Prentices at their Looms (October 1747)
[Second state] Etching and engraving on copper; printed on laid paper
In the workshop, Tom Idle is asleep at his loom with his arms folded while a cat plays with the shuttle; his flax wheel is empty and his copy of ‘The Prentices Guide’ is in shreds on the floor. A tobacco pipe and a mug of ale rest on his motionless loom; a page from Moll Flanders, Defoe’s tale of a promiscuous servant girl, hangs above his head. By contrast, Francis Goodchild works diligently at his loom having read and absorbed the lessons of ‘The Prentices Guide’, a well-preserved copy of which lies open near his wheel. He also owns a copy of the ballad of ‘Whitingham Ld Mayor’, the poor boy who became Lord Mayor of London after a life of hard graft. The apprentices’ master looks in and threatens Tom Idle with his cane. Outside the picture, Hogarth depicted attributes of Idleness (a hangman’s rope, a scourge and manacles) and Industry (a sword of state, the mace of the City of London and an alderman’s chain). Biblical quotations beneath the images also pointed the moral lessons of the series.
Hogarth made his narrative up to date by choosing as his subjects the Spitalfield weavers, a large and volatile community in the east end of the City, whose members reacted to the erratic nature of their employment, either by cultivating great thrift or drifting into desperate negligence and riotous violence.
Industry & Idleness 
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