During your trip to the McMaster Museum of Art, you may see one of William Hogarth’s works, The Laughing Audience: Bill of Sale (1733). (It is on view now through January 25 in the Voyager exhibition curated by Patrick Mahon.)

Take a moment to observe the rambunctious theatre scene. There are three classes of people within the etching; the haut ton, the working class, and the orange girls. The haut ton are the men in the balcony who are part of the upper class elite. Despite watching a performance that tickles the rest of the “common” audience silly; they remain poised, refined, and even….distracted?

Their distractions are the orange girls. These girls sell oranges to the members of the audiences between acts of a play for six pence. They are also messengers, delivering messages between some of the men in the audience and the actresses for some tips. You can see in the scene that they are busy working and are more interested in selling oranges than watching the show.

As members of audience in the pit, the working class are thoroughly entertained by the performance in front of them. Their faces are contoured into various expressions of laughter and enjoyment – all except one. Right next to one of the orange ladies, a critic stonily watches the performance without a smile on his face. He is a stark contrast to the jovial atmosphere surrounding him. At the very front of this piece, three musicians are just as solemn as the critic, accustomed to the noises of the crowd as they contribute melodies to the performance.

Hogarth’s etching is dynamic and busy, but it’s easy to get absorbed in the hustle and bustle of this lively theatre.

– Annie Zhu, McMaster Health Sciences student and Media/Museum Assistant, McMaster Museum of Art

Thomas Clerk, The Works of William Hogarth: (including the ‘Analysis of Beauty,’) Volume 2 (London, Printed for R. Scholey by J. Ballantyne & co., Edinburgh, 1812) in the collection of Harvard University. Read it online: http://archive.org/details/workswilliamhog01hogagoog