Marriage A-la-Mode II: The Tête à Tête

The second of six paintings in Hogarth's satirical series about a forced aristocratic marriage. The Earl returns home in the morning after a debauched night. His wife stretches awake; the steward leaves shaking his head at unpaid bills. On the Earl's neck: a small black mark — the diagnostic sign of syphilis. The series ends with the wife dying by suicide and the husband killed in a duel, both before they reach thirty. Now at National Gallery, London @nationalgallery