Wigs classified into five different orders in a parody of the orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. Etching by W. Hogarth, 1761.

A parody of the classical orders of architecture, and of the measured drawings of ancient buildings published as engravings in works by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett, such as their book The antiquities of Athens and other monuments of Greece, published by subscription in 1762. In place of the Ionic, Doric etc. orders of architecture, Hogarth presents the following orders of wigs: (top row) Episcopal or Parsonick, representing wigs suitable for bishops and clergymen; (second row) Old Peerian or Aldermanic, suitable for councillors and aldermen; (third row), Lexonic or suitable for judges and lawyers; (fourth row left) Composite or Half-natural, combining a tail-piece with a man's own hair; and (fourth row right) Queerinthian or Queue de Renard, combining a wig with a tailpiece, described by Stephens (op. cit. p. 13) as the wig "of a dandy or young man on whose profile appears a self-satisfied simper". Along the bottom, not named, are the heads of five ladies wearing coronets and different kinds of wigs: the lady on the left is Queen Charlotte, the recently crowned wife of King George III

Some portraits have been identified among the heads. The man wearing an "Episcopal" wig (top row, far right) may be William Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester, according to a 1762 source (Stephens, op. cit., p. 12, footnote 1). The man on the left of the Old Peerian or Aldermanic row is identified by Stephens (ibid., pp. 12-13) as George Bubb Dodington, 1st Baron Melcombe (1691-1762). The mannequin head in the lower left corner represents James Stuart, according to Horace Walpole, who wrote on 7 November 1761 "the Athenian head (the barber's block) was intended for Stuart; but was so like, that Hogarth was forced to cut off the nose" (Stephens, ibid. p. 14)

[London] : Publish'd as the Act directs by W. Hogarth, Octr. 15. 1761.

1 print : etching ; platemark 30.2 x 22.2 cm

The five orders of perriwigs as they were worn at the late Coronation, measured architectonically. Advertisement. In about seventeen years will be compleated, in six volumns, folio, price fifteen guineas, the exact measurements of the perriwigs of the ancients; taken from the statues, bustos, & baso-relievos, of Athens, Palmira, Balbec, and Rome, by Modesto Perriwig-meter from Lagado. N.B. None will be sold but to subscribers.

F.G. Stephens, Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum: Division I. Political and personal satires, vol. 4, London 1883, pp. 11-16 no. 3812

R. Paulson, Hogarth's graphic works, 3 ed., London 1989, no. 209

Wellcome Collection 3310001i

Exhibited in ‘The Cult of Beauty’ at Wellcome Collection, London, 26 October 2023 – 28 April 2024