Southwark Fair.

Southwark Fair was the second most renowned, or perhaps notorious, in London, after Bartholomew Fair. Held in September it started as a market and became increasingly a place of entertainment. In 1762 it was abolished as the so-called theatres and drinking dens had become centres of vice, and extremely dangerous. As in so many of Hogarth's works of this type each element of the composition is based on actual location, and the themes of the events shown as taking place were chosen to reinforce the purport of his social comment in the picture.

Good condition.