The Five Orders of Periwigs

The Five Orders of Periwigs

William Hogarth

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hogarth here applied the terminology of classical architecture to men’s wigs to satirize the divisions of British society. With mock seriousness, he arranged wig types in rows as though in an architectural treatise. Echoing the names of column capitals he labeled his specimens "Episcopal," "Old Peerian," "Aldermanic," "Lexonic," and "Queerinthian." The humor was inspired by a pompous advertisement for James Stuart’s and Nicholas Revett’s forthcoming book The Antiquities of Athens. Hogarth’s focus on the "orders" of British society had been sharpened by the September 1761 coronation of King George III and Queen Charlotte. A row of female heads at the bottom of the print refers to that event, with the queen shown at left. Her companions are differentiated not by their hairstyles, but by their coronets which identify them in descending rank as princess, duchess, countess, vis-countess and baroness.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.