A Rake's Progress

[2] The series shows the decline and fall of Tom Rakewell, the spendthrift son and heir of a rich merchant, who comes to London, wastes all his money on luxurious living, prostitution and gambling, and as a consequence is imprisoned in the Fleet Prison and ultimately Bethlem Hospital (Bedlam).

Evidence of the father's miserliness abound: his portrait above the fireplace shows him counting money; symbols of hospitality (a jack and spit) have been locked up at upper right; the coat of arms shows three clamped vises with the motto "Beware"; a half-starved cat reveals the father kept little food in the house, while lack of ashes in the fireplace demonstrates that he spent even less money on wood to heat his home.

The engraving (right), which is reversed left-to-right compared to the painting, shows the father went so far as to resole his shoes with a piece of leather cut from a Bible cover.

On this occasion he is saved by the intervention of Sarah Young, the girl he had earlier rejected; she is apparently a dealer in millinery and pays the bill.

This is a sly reference to how blessings on a person were accompanied by oil poured on the head; in this case, the 'blessing' being the 'saving' of Tom by Sarah, although Rakewell, being a rake, will not take the moral lesson to heart.

In the engraved version, lightning flashes in the sky toward White's gambling club[6] and a young pickpocket has just emptied Tom's pocket.

The sixth painting shows Tom pleading for the assistance of the Almighty in a gambling den at White's club after losing his reacquired wealth.

Tom begins to go mad, as indicated by both a telescope for celestial observation poking out of the barred window (an apparent reference to the longitude rewards offered by the British government) and an alchemy experiment in the background.

Finally insane and violent, in the eighth painting he ends his days in Bethlem Hospital (Bedlam), London's infamous mental asylum.

It was choreographed by Ninette de Valois, designed by Rex Whistler, has been recorded several times, and remains in the repertoires of various ballet companies.

Igor Stravinsky's 1951 opera The Rake's Progress, with a libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is loosely based on the story from Hogarth's paintings.

In 2012, English artist Grayson Perry created a series of tapestries named The Vanity of Small Differences, an adaptation of Hogarth's originals.