Wikimedia Commons • Public Domain
The Theft of a Watch
Artwork Details
Cite or Embed This Work
APA · MLA · Chicago1-click academic citation and embeddable “On View” museum badge for articles, syllabi, and research.
William Hogarth depicts a pickpocket scene with his characteristic moral commentary. A thief steals a watch from an unsuspecting victim, illustrating the dangers of London street life in the eighteenth century. Hogarth's keen observation of human behavior makes this more than simple genre painting.
Hogarth pioneered the "modern moral subject," using narrative sequences to comment on society's vices and follies. His satirical works influenced generations of caricaturists and social commentators. This painting resides at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, Britain's oldest public museum.
More by William Hogarth
View all →T
The Ashley and Popple Family
William Hogarth
Royal Collection, London
B
Before the Seduction and After
William Hogarth
Getty Center, Los Angeles
P
Prospero and Miranda from "The Tempest" of William Shakespeare
William Hogarth
Private Collection, Unknown
T
The Children's Theater In The House Of John Conduit
William Hogarth
Private Collection, Unknown
Also at Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
View all →S
St. Anne with Virgin and Child Christ
Michelangelo
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Oxford
A
A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Priest from the Persecution of the Druids
William Holman Hunt
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Oxford
T
The Return of the Dove to the Ark
John Everett Millais
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Oxford
T
The Schoolgirl's Hymn
William Holman Hunt
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Oxford
Related Works
Works that share an artist, movement, museum, genre, palette or theme with The Theft of a Watch.
- Same artist
A Harlot's Progress, plate 2
William Hogarth
- Same artist
The Denunciation
William Hogarth
- Same artist
Emblematical print of the South Sea Scheme
William Hogarth
- Same museum
Sketch with Two Figures
Jean-Antoine Watteau
- Same museum
Still Life of Kitchen Utensils
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin
- Same museum
Nighttime Procession in Piazza San Marco
Francesco Guardi
- Same museum
The Seeds and Fruit of English Poetry
Ford Madox Brown
- Same museum
Self Portrait
Raphael
- Same museum
The First Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
- Same museum
Pretty Baa-Lambs
Ford Madox Brown
- Same museum
John Ruskin
John Everett Millais
- Same museum
Landscape with Figures by a River
Camille Pissarro
About The Theft of a Watch
This painting is at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, which is Britain's oldest public museum. William Hogarth depicts a pickpocket scene with his characteristic moral commentary.
Hogarth pioneered the "modern moral subject," using narrative paintings to satirize society's vices and follies. William Hogarth depicts a pickpocket scene with his characteristic moral commentary.
The painting shows a pickpocket stealing a watch from an unsuspecting victim, illustrating the dangers of 18th-century London street life. William Hogarth depicts a pickpocket scene with his characteristic moral commentary.
Own Art Like This
Luxury wall art with the same mood and energy. Gallery-quality canvas, no museum crowds.
Browse Collection