Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.349
Gallery Label:
Intended as a satirical riposte to Italian opera, John Gay’s musical play The Beggar’s Opera premiered at the Theatre Royal, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, on January 29, 1728. Set in the criminal underworld of contemporary London, with highwaymen and prostitutes taking the place of the classical deities and heroes of the Italian opera, and with folk ballads and popular songs in place of florid arias, The Beggar’s Opera was wildly popular with London audiences. For the young William Hogarth, the subject of the play provided his first major success as a painter. He shows the climax in which the highwayman Macheath faces execution as his two wives, Lucy Lockit and Polly Peachum, plead for his life with their fathers, a jailer and a professional informer. Above the stage a banner bears the Latin motto “Veluti in speculum” (as in a mirror), suggesting that the stage action reflects real life.\n\n Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016