While poking about in the Tate’s Hogarth Room in order to find a copy of the print below, I again came across this painting of Hogarth’s, about which I had forgotten.  It is entitled The Shrimp Girl and dates from about 1740 or so.

For all its broad brush strokes and air of hasty composition, I love this painting – the girl’s face is so fresh, so animated and so joyful that it just fills one one with happiness.  When you see something like this, for a while at least nothing else really matters all that much.

As long as I was fooling about with Hogarth, I thought you might like to see her as well.