The Bench (Hogarth)

The Bench (Hogarth)

The Bench is the title of both a 1758 oil-on-canvas painting by the English artist William Hogarth, and a print issued by him in the same year. Unlike many of Hogarth's engravings produced from painted originals, the print differs considerably from the painting. It was intended as a demonstration of the differences between character painting, caricature and outré—developing on the theme he had begun to address in Characters and Caricaturas (his subscription ticket for Marriage à-la-mode)—but Hogarth was unhappy with the result as it showed only "characters", and he continued to work on the piece until his death.