[Masquerades and operas ("The bad taste of the town")] [graphic]

"Satire on the "bad taste of the town" (as described by Hogarth, Daily Courant, 24.ii.1724); a composite street scene with a theatre on either side and an "Academy of Arts" (Lord Burlington's recently remodelled house in Piccadilly) beyond; on the left, a fool and a devil are leading a crowd of masqueraders into the Opera House in the Haymarket from which hang a banner advertising an opera (based on British Museum satire no. 1768 with the singers Cuzzoni, Senesino and Berenstadt) and a sign for "Dr. Faux's [Isaac Fawkes] Dexterity of Hand", the impressario John James Heidegger leans from an upper window; on the right, a crowd is flocking to see the pantomime "Dr Faustus"; in the centre, a woman pushes a wheelbarrow of waste paper including volumes of Congreve, Dryden, Ottway, Shakespeare, Addison, and Pasquin No. XCV"; the gate of the Academy beyond is topped with statues of Michelangelo, Raphael and William Kent, admired by three gentlemen."--British Museum online catalogue