William Hogarth, The Rake's Progress
In the first painting, Tom has come into his fortune on the death of his miserly father. While the servants mourn, he is measured for new clothes. Although he has had a common-law marriage with her, he now rejects the hand of his pregnant fiancée, Sarah Young, whom he had promised to marry (she holds his ring and her mother holds his love letters) He will pay her off, but it is clear that she still loves him. Evidence of the father's miserliness abound: his portrait above the fireplace shows him counting money; symbols of hospitality {a jack and spit} have been locked up at upper right; the coat of arms show three clamped vises with the motto "Beware"; a half starved cat reveals the father kept little food in the house, while lack of ashes in the fireplace demonstrates that he rarely spent money for wood to heat his home. The engraving at the right shows the Father went so far as to resole shoes from a leather cover from a bible so as not to pay a shoemaker for repairs.
