Masquerades and Operas - Burlington Gate by William Hogarth 1723

Masquerades and - Burlington Gate or The Bad Taste of the Town 1723 by William Hogarth 1723 . Middle figure in centre is Lord Burlington. On show cloth is portrait of King George II who gave 1000 pounds towards the Masquerade, and one of Earl of Peterborough who offers Cuzzoni, Italian singer, 8000 pounds and she spurns him. Heidegger, regulator of the Masquerade is shown looking out of a window with letter H underneath him. This is Hogarth's earliest attack on taste for foreign fashions and one of his earliest satires.His targets are: the masquerade dances laid on by Swiss impresario Heidegger; pantomimes (the English version of the commedia dell'arte), and opera,from |Italy which required lavish payments to Italian singers; and Italianate architecture of the kind championed by Lord Burlington WH: English painter, printmaker, satirist, social critic, and cartoonist -10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764 WH 1810 vol II LL