Plate 1 Plate 4

Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg
"A Harlot's Progress" Plate 2 (detail)
by Hogarth

After being seduced by a bawd and a nobleman, Moll Hackabout is now "kept" by a Jewish businessman. Moll has assimilated into the "gay life" of London; she has exchanged her modest work clothes for silk stockings, stylish shoes and a fashionable dress that reveals her arms and her breast. (Revealing one's arms and breasts was quite daring at the time.) Moll has further violated religious sumptuary attitudes by employing a West Indian servant boy. Moll's face is less one of innocence; she now has a patch on both her face and her breast. The patch on her face may be a beauty spot or a sign of syphilis; the patch on her breast is likely to be due to syphilis.
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