A Porter to the Hogarth Club

William Holman Hunt

Date:  c. 1858-60

Materials: Pen and brown ink with ink wash

Gallery & social club

Launched in April 1858, the Hogarth Club was founded by Ford Madox Brown and a group of other artists, mostly of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, to provide themselves with both a social meeting-place and an exhibition gallery. It was given Hogarth's name, in Hunt's words, "to do homage to the stalwart founder of Modern English art".

Ruskin resigns

Only four significant exhibitions were ever mounted, in premises first at 178 Piccadilly then at 6 Waterloo Place, and its bureaucratic demands eventually proved too much, the club being formally dissolved in December 1861.

Hunt's spirited drawing of a waiter holding a bottle and corkscrew evokes the convivial side of the enterprise, which did not suit all tastes: Ruskin is reported to have resigned after a billiard table was installed.