FREDERICK impiously assuming the Character of the Devil, at a Masquerade.

Date1787

Publisher Carington Bowles 1724 - 1793

MediumLine engraving and etching on laid paper

DimensionsOverall: 9 3/4 × 15 1/2 in (24.76 × 39.37cm)
Other (Platemark): 6 3/4 × 10 3/4 in (17.14 × 27.3cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1959-83,8

DescriptionThe lower margin reads: "FREDERICK impiously assuming the Character of the Devil, at a Masquerade./ Printed for & Sold by Carington Bowles,/ N.o 69 St. Paul's Church Yard, London./ Published as the Act directs, 31 August, 1787."Label TextThe eighth of twelve prints representing the "Contrast between Virtue and Vice exhibited in the Characters of Two Brothers." This print is a continuation of the moral narrative that chronicles the fates of two brothers named Charles and Frederick, who travel down different paths after receiving their inheritance. What follows is a cautionary tale about virtue and vice, a popular topic of prints like William Hogarth's "Modern Moral Conversations" or those depicting the parable of the Prodigal Son.

Frederick attends as a masquerade ball dressed in the character of the devil. Other guests appear in common masquerade ball stock character costumes of the time such as a figure from La Commedia dell ‘Arte.ProvenanceBefore 1959, the Old Print Shop (New York, NY); 1959-present, purchased by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, VA).