The Inspection is the third of a series of six oil-on-canvas paintings by English painter and pictorial satirist
William Hogarth, created around 1743. The series, entitled
Marriage A-la-Mode, depicts an arranged marriage and its disastrous consequences in a satire of 18th-century society, and is now in the collection of the
National Gallery in London.
In this picture, titled The visit to the quack doctor by Hogarth, a young viscount (the son of the bankrupt Earl Squanderfield) is shown visiting a quack doctor. The black patch on the viscount's neck indicates that he has syphilis; he may have brought the young prostitute to the doctor because he believes he has infected her with the disease. The picture has been interpreted in various ways. The doctor is based on Dr Rock, a French doctor with premises at St Martin's Lane, Westminster, and the setting has a wealth of detail of the doctor's consulting room and the tools of his trade.Painting credit: William Hogarth