A Harlot's Progress, Plate 1

William Hogarth's engraved series inaugurated the modern satirical print tradition. This opening plate depicts a young woman's arrival in London, surrounded by predatory figures—a bawd, a corrupt clergyman, and opportunistic men—all converging on her vulnerability. The dense composition, rendered in fine line engraving, uses physical positioning and gesture to expose moral hypocrisy and urban exploitation. Hogarth's narrative sequence established the template for sequential visual storytelling that would influence caricaturists from Gillray to Rowlandson and eventually inform comic art. The print combines visual wit with social criticism, targeting not the vulnerable protagonist but the male institutions that prey upon her—a moral sophistication absent from cruder contemporary satire.