Humours of an Election Humours of an Election The Humours of an Election is a series of four oil paintings and later engravings by William Hogarth that illustrate the election of a member of parliament in Oxfordshire in 1754. The oil paintings were created in 1755. The first three paintings, "An Election Entertainment", "Canvassing for Votes" and "The Polling", demonstrate the corruption endemic in parliamentary elections in the 18th century, before the Great Reform Act. The last painting, "Chairing the Member", shows the celebrations of the victorious Tory candidates and their supporters. At this time each constituency elected two MPs, and there was a
Cowdray engravings of King Henry VIII at Marquison", "The Siege of Boulogne by King Henry VIII", "The Encampment of the English forces near Portsmouth" and "The riding of King Edward VI from the Tower of London to Westminster". Philip Yorke, the Earl of Hardwick and a keen antiquarian, proposed producing engravings of the paintings in the 1760s. His colleague, the antiquarian Sir Joseph Ayloffe, was spurred on by his interest and convinced the Society of Antiquaries to record them as engravings, as part of a longer series of historical prints produced by the society. The "Encampment of the English Forces near Portsmouth"