How you can use this image
This image can be used for non-commercial research or private study purposes, and other UK exceptions to copyright permitted to users based in the United Kingdom under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised. Any other type of use will need to be cleared with the rights holder(s).
Review the copyright credit lines that are located underneath the image, as these indicate who manages the copyright (©) within the artwork, and the photographic rights within the image.
The collection that owns the artwork may have more information on their own website about permitted uses and image licensing options.
Review our guidance pages which explain how you can reuse images, how to credit an image and how to find images in the public domain or with a Creative Commons licence available.
Notes
Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.
Graham is shown seated on the right at a circular, white-covered table, facing forward but glancing sideways rather than outward, with a place-setting for dinner in front of him. Seated on the left in front of the table, with a place-setting under his left elbow, is a plainly attired man with his legs crossed, dressed all in black with a white collar and stockings, and black buckled shoes. His dress implies he is socially inferior to Graham but an educated man – perhaps a secretary or tutor – and it may be symbolic of this social difference that a salt-cellar lies on the table between them. A Black servant boy stands on the far right behind Graham, playing a pipe and tabor. Behind the table a standing man, presumably a hired singer, holds a sheet of music which bears the otherwise recorded song title 'Arragh my Judy'.
Only the pug and steward or cook on the left look directly out to the viewer: everyone else’s glance is oblique and remains within the picture. The cook's smile invites the spectator in, while he seems unaware that he is spilling gravy, though there is a napkin there to catch it. Hogarth has thus introduced elements of humour, but the painting has been tantalisingly enigmatic in its meaning ever since it became known.
In June 1741 Captain Graham, then commanding the 40-gun 'Lark', returned from a ten-month round trip convoying merchant ships to Turkey and back. He was exhausted and unwell on his return, but was immediately ordered to undertake other local duties off the Kent coast that he found uncongenial, though the exact details are not clear.
The painting appears to be part of a campaign by Graham's friends to help the Captain recover his health and spirits, or a record of their efforts to that end after his father's death in 1742.
It was first lent for exhibition in Glasgow in 1888 by the 5th Duke of Montrose, in whose family it remained since left by Captain Graham to his elder brother William, the 2nd Duke, in 1747. It only became famous from its general display in the National Maritime Museum from 1937, as part of its founding benefaction from Sir James Caird, who bought it from the 6th Duke in 1932.
Title
Captain Lord George Graham (1715–1747), in His Cabin
Date
c.1745
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
H 68.5 x W 88.9 cm
Accession number
BHC2720
Work type
Painting