A Rake's Progress, Plate 7 (BM 1868,0822.1535 1)

A room in the Fleet Prison (after the painting at Sir John Soane's Museum); Tom sits at a table, to right, on which is a rejection letter from John Rich to whom he has submitted a play; his wife clenches her fists, the gaoler asks for garnish money and a boy asks payment for a tankard of ale; to left, Sarah Young has fainted and is being administered smelling salts by one woman while another slaps her hand, her child clings to her skirt; she is supported by an older man with a beard who has dropped a sheet containing a scheme for paying the national debt (a reference to such a scheme put forward by Hogarth's father); in the background an alchemist works at a forge. 1735
Etching and engraving