The Fellow 'Prentices at their Looms: Industry and Idleness, plate 1

The Fellow 'Prentices at their Looms: Industry and Idleness, plate 1 is a powerful etching and engraving created by William Hogarth in 1747. This print marks the beginning of Hogarth’s celebrated moral sequence contrasting the lives of two apprentice weavers, Thomas Idle and Francis Goodchild. Executed as the second state of two, the work immediately establishes the central theme of the series.

The composition depicts the two young men seated side-by-side at their looms in a cluttered, light-filled workshop. Francis Goodchild diligently attends to his task, his posture and surroundings representing industry and promise. In stark contrast, Thomas Idle sleeps lazily, his body slumped over his apparatus, allowing his equipment to fall into disarray, foreshadowing his eventual downfall. The stark visual difference between the careful attention to detail required by the weaving process and the neglect shown by Idle is central to the image’s didactic purpose.

Hogarth utilized prints of this nature not just as artistic statements but as popular moralizing tools for the burgeoning 18th-century British middle class. The work emphasizes the difference in character through surrounding elements; while Goodchild’s tools are orderly, Idle’s neglect is further illustrated by a small detail of a cat playing with the unused yarn. The meticulous detail achieved through the combined etching and engraving technique elevates the genre, allowing the viewer to analyze the subtle choices made by these working men. This important print, which defines the trajectory for the remaining plates in the series chronicling industry and idleness, is housed within the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.