The Countess's Morning Levee 1745

William Hogarth’s ‘The Countess’s Morning Levee’ was made with oil on canvas. It shows us the trappings of aristocratic life but does so with a critical edge, emphasizing the artifice, the excess, and the human cost of luxury. Consider the material culture on display here. The textiles of the dresses, the imported porcelain on the floor, and the makeup spread out on the table—all these things signify a global trade network underpinned by labor, much of it exploited. Hogarth’s genius was to make this system visible, even to a contemporary audience immersed in it. Take, for instance, the young Black pageboy on the right. He exists as an accessory, a walking advertisement for colonial power. In this, Hogarth anticipated later artists who would address the realities of class and race head on. He may have used traditional art materials but he was showing something radically new: society itself, as a constructed work of art.