The Cholmondeley Family, William Hogarth, 1732

Date painted: 1732 This elaborate conversation piece was commissioned by George Cholmondeley, Viscount Malpas, who is seated in the centre. The painting seems to be a memorial to his wife Mary, pictured on the far left of the canvas. She had died of consumption in France the previous year. The posthumous inclusion of individuals, their status pictorially indicated by such symbols as the putti seen hovering over Mary’s head, was not unusual in group portraits of this period. Within the composition Hogarth dramatises the different states of adulthood and childhood by juxtaposing the reflective mood of the adults with the playfulness and innocence of Malpas’s young sons on the right. http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/hogarth/hogarth-room-guide-room-4