Marriage à-la-mode: 2. The Tête à Tête

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Marriage à-la-mode: 2. The Tête à Tête
William Hogarth, 1743
Oil on canvas
69.9 × 90.8 cm
National Gallery, London

The Tête à Tête is the second canvas in the series of six satirical paintings known as Marriage à-la-mode painted by William Hogarth.

1 Persons
2 Plot
3 Details
- 3.1 Other paintings in the Marriage à-la-mode series
4 External links

[edit] Persons

The painting is the sparsest in terms of characters present, with only 4:

The Viscount — Seated, on the right
The Countess — Seated, across from her husband
The Methodist servant — Walking out
The other servant — In the other room

[edit] Plot

While the details are not always settled upon (The time of the day is one of the most disputed questions in the entire series), the primary implication is clear: The two are totally disinterested in each other and the marriage, not to mention the household, is rapidly becoming untenable.

[edit] Details

The clock on the right shows the time as 1:20. Commentators are undecided whether this is late at night or the afternoon but in either case, the implications are equally damning:
- If it's 1:20 in the morning, the house has clearly been the scene of a wild and debauched party, while the Viscount has been out till all hours and neither are interested in each other.
- If 1:20 in the afternoon, whatever occurred the night before hasn't been cleaned up, the servants are just barely waking up, the candles were left burning all night and into the day (Including the one that is about to set the chair next to the waiter on fire), and the couple has only recently risen.
The husband looks bored, dishevelled and distracted, and has returned exhausted from what was likely a trip to a brothel: the dog has sniffed out what appears to be a lady’s nightcap in his master’s jacket pocket. The patch on the man's neck indicates that he has contracted a sexually-transmitted disease.
The husband's sword lies broken at his feet signifying it has been used in a fight of some sort, possibly, like the Rake's in an attack upon a constable or watchman.
The husband's likeness is said to be based upon Hogath's friend, Francis Hayman.
The wife has spent the evening at home playing cards. At her feet is a book entitled Hoyle on Whist and there is an abandoned pack of cards strewn on the floor to her left.
In contrast to her husband, the wife looks content and pleased with herself as she takes a satisfied stretch. She is sat in an un-ladylike pose with her legs wide apart and has a large damp patch on the front of her skirt. She is slyly looking to the right through half closed eyes and holding a pocket-mirror above her head - she seems to be signalling to someone, perhaps her lover, out of the picture.
The steward is dressed in the style of a pious Methodist and has a book on "Regeneration" in his coat pocket. Behind his ear is a quill-pen. His entire expression clearly shows his opinion of the household and what its eventual fortunes will be. His ledger together with a clutch of unpaid bills in his hand are contrasted by a lone receipt on the spike, showing that the Viscount is, like his father the Earl, a spendthrift.
The steward is said to be based upon Edward Swallow, butler to Thomas Herring, the then Archbishop of York.
The carpet behind the steward has been cut and rolled back to fit around the base of the column, an example of a total lack of foresight and planning.
The interior is in the neo-Palladian style which Hogarth despised and thought degenerate, and often made the butt of his satire. Ironically, the interior is said to be based upon the drawing-room of 5 Arlington Street, London, the home of Horace Walpole, a great admirer of Hogarth.
Everything about the scene and fireplace especially alludes to the deteriorating state of the marriage. The fireplace is, again, in the neo-Palladian style. On the mantelpiece are a mismatched jumble of Indian figurines, glass jars, statuettes and other ornaments. The Roman bust has a broken nose, signifying impotence.
The painting above the fireplace is of Cupid sat amongst ruins, playing the bag-pipes and with no string to his bow: all alluding to the discordant and defective state of the marriage.
The clock to the right of the fireplace is a grotesque and ridiculous pastiche of Chinoiserie and Rococo - a bush containing a Buddha holding two candlesticks and a ridiculously inappropriate fish and a meowing cat - that is deliberately out of style with the rest of the architecture. Hogarth would have felt it ridiculous to combine neo-Palladian, style which originated in Italy, with Rococo, which originated in France.
The wall in the far room is hung with three religious paintings - portraits of the apostles - and a fourth painting so obscene it has to be kept covered with a green curtain, although a naked foot is revealed.
The overturned piece of furniture (this time a chair) seen in the foreground is a device often used by Hogarth to indicate disagreement and discordance.