Most of my "progressive" friends assume this work to be a condemnation of women, while I take it to be a call to defending their dignity.
Hogarth was a master of detail in the service of his message. Over the years, I have been taught many of these features, and I continue to discover new ones to this day.
Moll Hackabout arrives in London. Her scissors and pincushion suggest she may be seeking work as a seamstress, but her good looks have drawn the attention of the pox-ridden Elizabeth Needham, a well-known brothel-keeper of the time.
A rake, usually identified as Colonel Francis Charteris, and a pimp, look on lustfully from the door of a crumbling building, the former with his hand thrust into his pocket.
No one else seems to be paying much attention, since the recruitment of prostitutes would sadly have been so common. A clergyman on a horse is too caught up in his reading, and he carelessly knocks over a stack of pots and pans, oblivious to what goes on around him.
Moll is dressed in white, signifying her innocence, and her luggage includes the gift of a goose for a relative. Critics have suggested that the scene is meant to be a perverse mirroring of the Visitation, where Mary calls on her cousin, Elizabeth.
William Hogarth, A Harlot's Progress, Plate 1 (1732)
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