contrasting popular depictions of Africa in Europe as being inhabited by "doll worshippers and hunters". In the fifth painting, The Bagnio (the name on its frame: The killing of the earl), the new earl has caught his wife in a bagnio with her lover, the lawyer, and is fatally wounded. As she begs forgiveness from her stricken husband, the murderer lawyer in his nightshirt makes a hasty exit through the window. A picture of a woman with a squirrel on her hand hanging behind the countess contains lewd undertones. Masks on the floor indicate that the couple have been at a masquerade. Finally, in the sixth painting, The Lady's Death (the name on its frame: The suicide of the countess), the countess poisons herself in her grief and poverty-stricken widowhood, after her lover is hanged at Tyburn for murdering her husband. An old woman carrying her baby allows the child to give her a kiss, but the mark on the child's cheek and the caliper on her leg suggest that disease has been passed onto the next generation. The countess's father, whose miserly lifestyle is evident in the bare house, removes the wedding ring, the only valuable possession his late daughter has left, from her finger. These pictures were at first poorly received by the public, to the great disappointment of the artist. He sold them to a Mr. Lane of Hillington for one hundred and twenty guineas. The frames alone had cost Hogarth four guineas each, so his initial remuneration for painting this valuable series was only sixteen shillings over a hundred pounds. After Lane's death they became the property of his nephew, Colonel Cawthorn. In May 1796 they were sold by auction at Christie's, Pall Mall for one thousand guineas to John Julius Angerstein. They are now owned by the British government and are part of the collection of the National Gallery. It had been Hogarth's intention to follow the Marriage A-la-Mode series with a companion series called The Happy Marriage, but that series only exists as a series of unfinished sketches. Technical commentary Although this series of paintings are works of art in their own right, their original purpose was to provide the subjects for the series of engraved copper plate prints. When engraving copper plates the image engraved on the plate is a mirror image of the final print. Normally, when undertaking paintings that are to