The Idle 'Prentice Executed at Tyburn (Industry and Idleness, plate 11)

The Idle 'Prentice Executed at Tyburn (Industry and Idleness, plate 11) by William Hogarth is a powerful satirical print created in 1747. This work is the penultimate image in Hogarth’s famed series contrasting the paths of two apprentices: the hardworking Thomas Idle and the lazy, ultimately criminal, Tom Idle. Executed using etching and engraving techniques, this impression represents the third and final state of the plate, showing the artist’s refined vision for this climactic scene.

The print depicts the climactic moment of Tom Idle’s execution at the infamous Tyburn gallows, a site of immense public spectacle and moral instruction in 18th-century London. Hogarth expertly captures the chaos and dark carnival atmosphere associated with such public events. A massive, densely packed crowd fills the foreground, their reactions ranging from morbid curiosity to raucous indifference, emphasizing the sensational aspect of judicial punishment. Order is tenuously maintained by mounted soldiers on horseback, struggling to control the surging populace surrounding the doomed cart carrying the condemned apprentice.

Hogarth designed the Industry and Idleness series not just as art, but as didactic visual sermons intended for mass consumption, often sold cheaply to reach a wide audience. This moralistic narrative culminates in the brutal administration of justice shown in The Idle 'Prentice Executed at Tyburn. As a key example of the artist’s social commentary through popular prints, the work holds significant historical value in understanding Georgian-era culture and morality. This important impression resides in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and reproductions of this public domain print are widely utilized today for studying 18th-century graphic arts.