Moses Brought to Pharaoh’s Daughter
William Hogarth (English, 1697–1764)
1751
- Medium
- Various red chalks (one oxidized to black) on cream laid paper
- Classification
- Drawing and Watercolor
- Dimensions
- 40.6 × 52.5 cm (16 × 20 11/16 in.)
- Culture
- England
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Around 1747 William Hogarth completed a series of history paintings that were much more serious in tone than the satirical works on which he had built his fame. This drawing and Paul before Felix (2011.641) were both likely made after those paintings as studies for engravings. Paul before Felix, showing the apostle’s self-defense, was commissioned for the chapel of Lincoln’s Inn, where lawyers were admitted to the bar. Moses was similarly appropriate for its location, the London Foundling’s Hospital, as it shows the prophet’s mother reluctantly giving him up for adoption.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
