A Rake's Progress, 3: The Tavern Scene A Rake's Progress, 3: The Tavern Scene Tavern Scene or "The Orgy" is a work by William Hogarth from 1735, the third picture from the series "A Rake's Progress". "A Rake's Progress" totals eight oil paintings from 1732-33. They were published as engravings from 1734. The series depicts the fictional Tom Rakewell's decline and fall. He was the free spending son and heir of a rich merchant. In the story, he comes to London, wasting his money on luxurious life, buying the services of prostitutes and gambling. He ends up in Fleet Prison, and finally at the Bethlem Hospital, or
Marriage A-la-Mode (Hogarth) the engraver views it in a mirror as he undertakes the engraving. Hogarth was an engraver himself and disliked this course of action using mirrors, so unusually, he produced the paintings for Marriage à-la-mode already reversed so the engraver could directly copy them. It would normally be expected to view the series of prints moving from left to right and Hogarth would have taken this into account when composing the original paintings. Commentators have used a variety of names for the individual paintings, but as the paintings are presently in the National Gallery the names used there are used here.