The Four Times of the Day

The Four Times of the Day is a series of four paintings by William Hogarth, completed in 1736 and issued as engravings in 1738, depicting London street life at Morning, Noon, Evening, and Night.

The four scenes

Morning is set in winter at Covent Garden, contrasting a prudish spinster on her way to church with revelers from the night before. Noon, set in spring on Hog Lane, St Giles, contrasts fashionable Huguenot churchgoers with rowdier English locals across the street. Evening, set in summer outside the city, follows an exhausted dyer's family returning from an outing. Night, set amid the chaos of Oak Apple Day at Charing Cross, depicts a drunken freemason and various nocturnal disorder. Unlike Hogarth's narrative "modern moral subject" series, the four prints function as a detached, satirical set of social snapshots rather than a single moralizing story.

See also

• William Hogarth