Art, literature & history
Plate four, from A Harlot's Progress
1732
- Dating
- Exact year
- Held at
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Medium
- Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 30.2 × 37.9 cm (11 15/16 × 14 15/16 in.); Plate: 31.5 × 38.8 cm (12 7/16 × 15 5/16 in.); Sheet: 43.6 × 53.6 cm (17 3/16 × 21 1/8 in.)
- Collection no.
- 2015.216.4
- Attribution
- By the artist
- Image rights
- CC0 1.0License details
William Hogarth. Plate four, from A Harlot's Progress, 1732. Inventory 2015.216.4. William Hogarth; Art Institute of Chicago. Collection credit: The Amanda S. Johnson and Marion J. Livingston Fund. CC0 1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). https://www.artic.edu/artworks/228986. Full-frame proportional resize and JPEG compression.
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
About this artwork
Plate four, from A Harlot's Progress — William Hogarth. 1732.
Medium: Engraving in black on ivory laid paper. Dimensions: Image: 30.2 × 37.9 cm (11 15/16 × 14 15/16 in.); Plate: 31.5 × 38.8 cm (12 7/16 × 15 5/16 in.); Sheet: 43.6 × 53.6 cm (17 3/16 × 21 1/8 in.).
Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.
Arrested and thrown into prison, the now prominently pockmarked Moll proves inadequate to the physical labor of beating hemp for hangmen’s nooses. Amid cardsharps and debtors, she appears particularly out of place in her elaborate dress. But she seems destined for even more difficult straits, given that both her former servant and the jailer’s wife are seen here stealing from her.
Description: © Art Institute of Chicago, original record, CC BY 4.0. HTML formatting removed; wording retained. Other artwork metadata: CC0.
Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.
Location checked Sep 10, 2026. This does not indicate whether the work is on display.