A Harlot's Progress of six prints to subscribers for a Guinea. Pirate copies of the engravings were soon in circulation, and Hogarth procured a 1735 Act of Parliament (8 Geo. II. cap. 13) to prohibit the practice. Soon after, Hogarth published his second series of satirical and moralistic images, "A Rake's Progress", followed ten years later by "Marriage à-la-mode". The original paintings were destroyed in a fire at Fonthill House in 1755, the country house of William Beckford (1709–1770), a politician and father of William Thomas Beckford (1 October 1760 – 2 May 1844) builder of Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire. The original plates
Before and After (Hogarth) the woman clings to the man, her bonnet and skirts disarrayed. The dog sleeps on the floor beside the overturned dressing table, its mirror lying broken on the floor. The paintings are thought to have been commissioned by John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu. The male protagonist was traditionally identified as John Willes, later Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. They were made around the time Hogarth was working on his paintings of "The Harlot's Progress". Hogarth made engravings of "Before" and "After" in 1736, around the time as Hogarth was working on his painting "Four Times of