The Toilette is the fourth 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 countess's morning levee by Hogarth, the old Earl Squanderfield has died; his son is now the new earl, and his wife the countess. She is holding a reception during her "toilette" in her bedroom. The fact that Hogarth ridiculed this gathering of people in the bedroom of a noble during their "morning" grooming shows that such a convocation in such an intimate room was increasingly viewed as inappropriate. While the countess is having her hair attended to, she is ignoring her guests and having a dalliance with her lawyer, Silvertongue, who is lounging on the sofa.Painting credit: William Hogarth