Gentleman Harry - The Reward of Cruelty
by William Hogarth
November 1751
British Museum S,2.126
Detail from "The Reward of Cruelty," the final plate in a series of four. The print shows the dissection of fictional criminal Tom Nero, with the skeletons of recently hanged criminals in niches on either side of the room. The name of highwayman Henry Simms, hanged June 17, 1747—"Gentn: Harry"—was replaced by the more topical "James Field," pugilist and criminal who was hanged the same month the print was made. Simms' skeleton points at the skeleton in the opposite niche, that of James Macleane, "the Gentleman Highwayman," who had been hanged October 1750.
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