‘The Company of Undertakers (Consultation of Physicians)’, 1736

Description

Mounted etching, entitled ‘The Company of Undertakers’, designed, etched and published by William Hogarth in 1736.

Hogarth’s satirical comment on the medical profession. Represented within an imaginary Coat of Arms; Hogarth satirises physicians and quacks, and their spurious learning, through the idiocies of Heraldry.

The motto on the coat of arms; “ET PLURIMA MORTIS IMAGO”, translates as “And I picture many types of death”. The three figures in the upper third of the shield design are portraits of three notorious quacks; “Chevalier” John Taylor (c.1708-1772), the oculist or “Ophthalmiator, Pontificial, Imperial, and Royal”, whose cane is marked with an eye and who leers with one eye shut at Mrs “Crazy Sal” Mapp the bone setter, dressed as a harlequin who points at her bone-shaped staff. On the right is Dr Joshua “Spot” Ward (1685-1761), so named from a facial birth mark.

The lower part of the shield is occupied by character studies of twelve pompous doctors, most of whom sniff the heads of their