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Moses Brought to Pharaoh’s Daughter

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Watch the small boy turn from his mother at left toward the princess on the dais, and find the pyramid in the distance that sets the scene in Egypt.

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Hogarth painted the scene this drawing records for the Foundling Hospital in London, and the subject suited the place: Moses’s mother reluctantly gives up her son to be raised by Pharaoh’s daughter. Like Paul before Felix, the drawing was probably a study for an engraving after the painting. Hogarth signed it with his initials and the date 1751 and wrote a reference to the Book of Exodus at the bottom.

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Various red chalks (one oxidized to black) on cream laid paper · 40.6 × 52.5 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Rococo

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Details and source

Museum title
Moses Brought to Pharaoh’s Daughter
Artist
William Hogarth English, 1697–1764
Date
1751
Medium
Various red chalks (one oxidized to black) on cream laid paper
Dimensions
40.6 × 52.5 cm (16 × 20 11/16 in.)
Credit line
Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
Image license
CC0 1.0 · Public domain
Museum record
Art Institute of Chicago

Artist’s life 1697–1764

Rococo c. 1720–1770s

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Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.

Moses Brought to Pharaoh’s Daughter · William Hogarth, 1751
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Moses Brought to Pharaoh’s Daughter, William Hogarth

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