Guzzling, Drinking & Dining with Mr Hogarth

Spend an indulgent evening with Lars Tharp, international lecturer and broadcaster, and one of the longest serving ‘experts’ on the BBC antiques programme, Antiques Roadshow as he discusses 18th century eating and drinking through the work of William Hogarth.

A founder member of the Sublime Order of Beefsteaks, the artist William Hogarth (1697-1764) liked his food and drink.  Capturing the manners and menus of his day, his ‘foody’ images range from refined dining to the debauchery of London’s roughest taverns and dives.

His tables are moral ‘stages’ on which good and evil contend and where ‘Englishness and Liberty’ are asserted: in Oh for the Roast Beef of Old England he parades the superiority of succulent British beef before the envious eyes of the emaciated French, doomed to their gruel and ragouts. Meanwhile, brought out of cupboard and scullery, Hogarth presents us with the wares, pots and pans of his day, all depicted with obsessive precision…